Et Filii Tempus
by siobhane
Summary: A split second of hesitation alters the time-loop forever. History, stories, and paths are re-written as fate takes a different course. Bonded since childhood to a Sorceress who did not choose him, Seifer gets a second chance to be a hero, but at what cost? AU/Canon Divergence
1. Chapter 1

_Prologue_

* * *

 _...kursed fool, you will obey..._

Hell is blue. The walls. The floor. The ceiling. Everything.

Hell is his twisted mind and the blood on his hands.

Adel towers over him as Rinoa struggles in his grip, fighting, clawing, (kursing) his name, begging, pleading, crying for him to let her go.

 _...give her to adel, boy..._

Seifer doesn't know what he's doing anymore, or why. She isn't the Sorceress he followed out of love and loyalty for the only mother he's ever known. She is a stranger, a parasite and she's sucked out every part of him that mattered, destroyed everything he's ever loved.

Rinoa, he almost loved her once. Before all this.

This isn't what he planned, none of it the boyhood fantasy he dreamed up late at night in his dorm room as he listened to Raijin's snoring through the wall. This isn't what he imagined when he sought to help the Forest Owls in their attempted coup.

Hyne, how he wanted to impress her, to strip away that flare of doubt in her eyes when he swore he was behind her all the way. All he wanted was to be her hero, but fate and circumstance cast him as villain, and it's too late to back out, too late to put down his weapon, and his pride won't allow him to raise a white flag, no matter how tired he is of the fighting and confusion.

 _...do it now, boy..._

"I'm not a boy!" he shouts, but no one hears him over the din of Adel's howl of rage as she wakes from her long slumber. "I'm... _not a boy_."

"Please, Seifer... Please don't do this."

He's torn between zealous belief in his Sorceress' cause, and affection for the girl in his grip. This is wrong. It's all wrong, and he doesn't know how to stop it. He almost loved her, almost, and the things he's done are a guarantee she will never love him back.

She's fighting this. Her foot collides with his shin, her elbows batter his ribs and her nails leave bloody trenches and crescent moons of red on his skin, but he feels no pain, only registers it on the periphery, his body barely his own anymore.

 _...i kommand you..._

It isn't Rinoa's tears that stay his hand a second too long. It isn't the stinging pain inside his skull or the pulse of red behind his eyes. It isn't Adel's wolfish grin or fear of what will become of him now that his life is a ruin.

It's the look on Squall's face, the raw disappointment, the _sympathy_. Leonhart _pities_ him, and it's sickening.

"I don't want to have to kill you, Almasy," Squall says. "Let her go."

His grip on Rinoa tightens, she cries out, and the hellish blue light in the walls sputters like a strobe and he's pulled along an invisible chord, a puppet on a string, his mistress a deity and her control absolute.

But Seifer resists. He fights her with the last of his sanity and strength, and he throws Rinoa to the ground at Leonhart's feet, lifts his blade and drives it deep into Adel's gut.

And in that moment, as Adel's blood spills over his hands, everything changes.

* * *

If hell is blue, this is the floor below.

He's been running for days, hours, years, over cracked earth and dark holes that bleed out over the dirt like amoebas, through fog and downpours that reek of blood, under clouds the color of bruises and smoke.

Lost, lost, lost, tired, ashamed, Seifer doesn't know where to turn.

Leonhart let him have the finishing blow – an honor or an obligation, Seifer's still not sure, and now he's unraveling in the wake of her end. It cuts him all the way to the bone, all the way into what's left of his charcoal black soul, but she's still with him somehow, following not far behind, looking for a place to die.

* * *

The orphanage is as he remembers it.

He stands upon the beach as children play in the sand and he picks out familiar faces among them, Trepe and Leonhart and Sis, himself with snowy blonde hair and thick, stocky legs, and he doesn't remember ever being this innocent. His smile is ornery as he tugs Quistis' braid, and he laughs as she shoves him down into the sand, hands on her hips in indignation.

He smirks a little as he looks around and remembers – this is the last place he was ever truly happy.

He doesn't belong here, not in this time, and not in this place, but as he turns to leave, Cid stands before him, slimmer, younger, his face unlined, and Seifer presses back a mixture of fondness and bitter hate as he stares at the man that will help shape his future.

That little boy in the sand will do things he never dreamed he'd do, and not all of them worth living through.

"Kramer," he says.

"Can I help you, son?"

Seifer looks at him full-on until the man takes a step back and casts his eyes at the younger version of the almost-man before him.

Cid lets out a shaky breath and he removes his glasses and wipes them clean on his vest.

"Why are you here?"

There are a thousand things Seifer could say to him. A thousand grievances he could get off his chest. He could offer a warning, but instead, he thinks of the life he deserved and never had and compares it to the one he's lived so far.

"Don't let me turn into a monster."

Cid doesn't know what he means, but he casts his eyes to the laughing five year old boy burrowing in the sand.

"Fight your own battles, Kramer," he says. "I want no part of Garden or SeeD-"

He hisses the last part, but before Seifer can say anything more, he senses her there and turns toward the presence he's run from since the moment he took her life.

She staggers across the sand, her dress ragged and stained dark with blood, her face a beautiful horror and she falls to her knees before Ellone. Seifer's heart is in his throat – he didn't mean to bring her here – _not Sis, Hyne, not Sis -_ but it's too late and magic pours from her body and into the girl and there's a blinding-burning-scalding heat in his blood that sends him to his knees as her consciousness dies and she fades into nothing.

But there's a new presence in his head, softer, gentler, and so, _so_ young, and a part of him dies as he looks up and sees her staring back at him with big, frightened brown eyes.

His younger self, previously engaged in the destruction of Quistis' sand creation has gone still and his ocean blue eyes are fixed on Ellone.

 _What have I done?_

All his memories, of Garden and SeeD and everything he knows are ripped apart as the world around him spirals away and dissolves into dust.

* * *

Notes: This is the convergence of a really old idea and a new one - a "what if" scenario I really wanted to develop but didn't quite know how to go about. I promised myself I wouldn't do this again but here I am... Heh. The good news is a solid half of this is already written.

As far as other stories go, "Bad Habits" and "Fall on Your Knees" are officially dead. As much as I liked both ideas, my motivation and interest in writing them just wasn't there. "Bad Blood" is on hold, and "Swashbuckling" will continue to be updated as time to write allows. DCC, still in progress and will be updated to completion.

Hope you enjoyed!


	2. Chapter 2

Eight-year-old Ellone sat bundled in a blanket on the couch, shaking as Cid and Edea talked about her like she wasn't there.

Something crawled under her skin, an itch she couldn't reach, and she was cold all the way to her bones. Neither tea nor a blanket helped warm her, and in the hours since the witch poured her magic and the remains of her consciousness into Ellone, neither Cid nor Edea paid her much mind.

They didn't ask the questions that mattered. If they'd asked, Ellone could have filled them in, but they were preoccupied with other matters, and Ellone couldn't seem to find her voice to speak up.

Beside her, Seifer snuggled himself under her arm, uncharacteristically serious and silent.

He refused to let her go. Not since the tall man and the witch appeared on the beach.

Everything Laguna sacrificed to save her was for naught. Power sought power, as Dr. Odine once told her, and she should have known better than to think she was safe here. It found her, latched on, and brought a hitchhiker with.

Seifer, none the wiser, was compelled to be near her, and Ellone couldn't shake him, no matter how hard she tried.

Laguna was probably dead. Ellone tried to reach out to him from time to time, but there was nothing on the other side but a static hum. She wished he was here now. Laguna always knew how to cheer her up, even if he didn't always know what to do.

They were all dead. Her parents. Raine. Everyone who ever tried to help wound up dead, and at age eight, Ellone believed herself a toxic thing that poisoned everyone around her.

Thoughts of running away crossed her mind as the Kramer's continued to discuss what to do next.

She hated what she was, for her parents and for Raine, for Laguna and his friends, and now she hated it even more on behalf of Cid, Edea, and poor, hopeless little Seifer who'd been dragged along for the ride. She would bring them down, burden them with the power she never asked for, and they would probably die too.

If she could have cried, she would have, but Ellone had no tears left. For as scared as she was, crying was pointless anyway. Tears wouldn't fix it or make it go away. Instead, she focused on the discussion turned argument unfolding before her.

"With what money, Edea?" Cid demanded. "We're already in the red. There's nothing else to give up!"

"We'll just have to look a little harder," Edea said. "You know what will happen -"

"You've been safe so far," he cut in. "I'm sure Ellone will be safe here too."

"A full-grown Seifer Almasy appeared with a dying Sorceress at his heels," Edea said. "That doesn't bode well for the future. Something is coming, and we need to prepare for that."

 _You came with her, didn't you? That man was you, all grown up, wasn't it? And you don't even know why you want to be here with me, do you?_

"And what do you plan to do, take Seifer with you?" Cid demanded. "He's only four."

Ellone looked to the boy at her side and wished she could cry for him. He was too little for this. How could a four-year-old protect her from anything? Unless her adversary was particularly vulnerable to ankle biting, mud pies or temper tantrums, there was little he could do.

"We need to consider finding homes for some of the children," Cid said. "I know you don't want to hear that, but we can't support them all as it is."

"There has to be another way," Edea said.

It gave Ellone no peace of mind, no solace or comfort to feel Seifer there, and try as she might, he wouldn't let go. He was rooted like a tick inside her mind – an essential part of what she'd become, his consciousness an impossible remnant the witch left behind.

"I thought I got to choose," Ellone said aloud, interrupting their conversation, "who my Knight would be."

Cid and Edea both peered at her as if they'd forgotten she was there, and she cringed at the dark anger in Cid's eyes.

Neither had an answer.

* * *

As the older children were adopted one by one, more and more of the responsibility of helping out around the orphanage fell on Ellone's shoulders, a job she shared with Xu. They looked after the younger children while Edea and Cid were busy making plans for the future that they didn't share with Ellone. The girls babysat and changed diapers and made sure Seifer wasn't sticking his finger in Zell's ear again and that Squall hadn't made himself a nest in a closet somewhere to escape all the others. They helped serve meals and tended the garden, did laundry and fed babies and all the other assorted domestic things required to make life run smoothly.

That wasn't to say the Kramer's dumped it all on them. With so many to care for, there was no other option, and Ellone, burdened by the burden she presented, would do what she could to make up for it.

Chores were no burden in comparison to the cold power flowing through her veins. Sometimes, she felt it at night, a steady throb in her blood, a wildness that wanted out, and it scared her.

Seifer always woke when it happened, and he would crawl beneath the covers and snuggle into her, smelling of something sweet from the bath, and it chased the darkness away. During the day, Ellone had her doubts, but in those moments, as everyone around them slept, and with Seifer's small body curled up against hers, thumb stuffed in his mouth, all her fears faded.

"'m yer Knight, Elle," he would say as he drifted off to sleep. "I'll p'tect yooo."

And he tried. Oh, how he tried.

Seifer defended her from imaginary beasts with his toy gunblade and from dastardly cockroaches with the sole of his shoe. He was rarely outside her line of vision on purpose, he never strayed far, and as hard as Ellone tried to release him, he stood solid and firm in his Knighthood.

One morning, Ellone sat in the field as the children played with an eye on the dark line of storm clouds on the horizon. They would have to go in soon, as prospective parents were expected to visit with the children that afternoon, but she wanted to let them blow off as much steam as possible before they arrived. Certain kids could be rather cranky or destructive without adequate time to play, and these visits always cut into their afternoon recess.

Somewhere nearby, Squall crawled through the tall grass, pretending to be a lion. He let out the occasional roar as he he built himself a den away from the other kids. Ellone wished he was a little more engaged with the others. She imagined Irvine or Zell might be game to play with him if he let them, but he rarely did.

As thunder rumbled in the distance, Ellone decided it was time to go in. She called the children to her and assessed the group, to see who needed the most damage control. Seifer, Zell and Squall were the dirtiest, all three covered from head to toe in mud and bits of grass, and Seifer sported various scrapes in need of tending.

Inside, she herded all three into the bath and filled a large, round metal tub with lukewarm water and bubbles and helped them undress.

Squall insisted on doing it by himself. It took him twice as long, but by the time Ellone was done wrangling Zell out of his clothes and had assisted Seifer with sock removal, Squall's mission was complete, and she plunked all three in the tub at the same time.

The water turned a dull brown right away and the pristine white bubbles became tinged in gray as they splashed and shoved and jostled each other. She scrubbed Zell's face as Seifer made waves by scooting his butt back and forth along the bottom and wiggling from side to side. Squall commandeered his _own_ washcloth, too independent to rely on her help.

"I want the boats," Seifer said.

"We don't have time for the boats today," Ellone said. "Families are coming, remember?"

"Stupid famlees," he said. "Don' like 'em."

She scrubbed his dirt and blood streaked arms and examined his skinned elbows with a frown. Without thinking about it, magic swelled from her fingertips and covered his wounds in pale light. They were mended in seconds, and Seifer looked down at the pinkish scars with lopsided grin.

"Neat, Elle," he said. "All better!"

"Sis," Squall corrected and cast Seifer a harassed look.

When the boys were clean and dried and dressed, Ellone brought in the girls and gave them the same treatment. It never failed to shock her how dirty the normally prim and proper Quistis could get when she was in the mood for physical play. Selphie was almost always as filthy as the boys, so it was no surprise that Selphie had dirt caked in the creases of her arms and clots of mud in her hair.

"We played hairstyle," Selphie chirped, in a painfully cute little voice. "Quisty made me pretty!"

"She sure did," Ellone said and dumped a sand pail of water over Selphie's head. "It's my turn to play, okay?"

The prospective families arrived a while later, and the children were dressed in their best hand-me-down outfits, squeaky clean and in various states of excitement.

Zell greeted them with his sunniest, sweetest smile, small and adorable and absolutely lovable, and Quistis was on her best behavior, prepared to wow them with her vocabulary and her decorum. Irvine and Selphie squabbled over puzzle pieces, and Squall retreated to the furthest corner with a book and his stuffed lion and ignored them, save a wary look every now and then.

Seifer found his way into Ellone's lap, as he usually did, and he stared at the strangers with a scowl.

"Don't need no famlee," he said. "Yer my famlee."

Ellone snuggled her pint-sized Knight close and watched as the visiting couple fawned all over Quistis and remarked on how smart and pretty she was. They were a nice couple from Galbadia, and dressed like they had money to spare. The woman looked enough like Quistis that people would assume she was Quistis' mother, and the man was handsome, with a slow, easy grin and a big, hearty laugh that Quistis warmed to by degrees.

She couldn't put her finger on why she didn't trust them. They looked nice enough. They would take care of Quistis, better than Cid and Edea could with all these screaming kids at their heels. They would buy her pretty dresses and give her all the attention she deserved, maybe enroll her in gifted classes and ballet lessons.

These visits were hard. It was tough to watch the kids go, one by one, and Ellone decided her concern had more to do with the possibility Quistis would leave than with the parents themselves.

Squall eased himself into Ellone's lap beside Seifer and his head dropped to her shoulder. He too stared at the strangers, unwilling and uninterested in interaction with them.

Ellone tickled both their sides to ease their fears, and Seifer squealed in delight as Squall giggled and squirmed away from her wiggling fingers.

"Again!" Seifer demanded when she stopped.

"You're not supposed to _want_ to be tickled, silly," Ellone said.

"I wanna."

"Me too," Squall said.

Whatever one wanted, the other wanted, too.

Ellone tickled their ribs and grinned at Seifer's belly laugh, which is somewhere between a maniacal cackle and a howl, and at Squall's quieter, more subdued giggles. When they couldn't stand it anymore, she blew raspberries on their bellies because they loved it.

They loved her back with such purity and innocence, and Ellone had such a soft spot for the both of them. They looked at her like she hung the moon, the stars and created the sun herself, and no matter how dark her thoughts, they always brought her back.

* * *

Quistis left that night, her meager belongings stuffed inside a single bag, and as they waved goodbye from the steps, Edea burst into tears. Cid tried to comfort her, but she would not be consoled. As the new family walked away, Quistis looked back at them, and at the house, and raised her hand in parting, a heartbreaking amount of trepidation in her eyes.

Selphie was the next to go, a week later, to the Tilmitt's of Trabia. The Tilmitts were young parents of four boys, fun and loud people, and Selphie fit right in. She charmed them with her big green eyes and outgoing and industrious personality, and when she left, she barely looked back.

Irvine and Edea both cried for days.

Then it was Irvine's turn, and Edea didn't leave her room for nearly a week once he was gone. Cid promised it was for the best, but it did nothing to dry her tears.

Quistis returned two months later with a bruise on her face, shell-shocked and afraid to let anyone touch her.

"It was an accident," was all Quistis would say. "I didn't mean to."

Edea put her foot down. No more foster parents, no more adoptions. No more kids going off to the unknown. She canceled Zell's pending adoption to the Dincht family in Balamb, and turned away anyone who came asking.

Ellone was relieved that no more of the kids would go away. There weren't many left, and she feared the day someone might come and decide they wanted one of her boys.

The others, Selphie and Irvine, they didn't come back.

* * *

The year Ellone turned fourteen, the world began to change again.

It was no longer safe, even with Edea's enchantments, and the tension at the orphanage was at an all time high. At first, Ellone didn't know what to pin it on. It was subtle, but Edea's good humor slipped away a bit at a time and she stopped sleeping. Cid was gone for long, unexplained periods of time, and when he returned, all their conversation revolved around _the plan._

Ellone paid closer attention to the news Edea listened to on the ancient and shoddily modified-for-cable radio in the kitchen, and what she heard wasn't good.

The rebels of Timber launched an offensive against their oppressors, the assault led by an organization named Forest Fox. Galbadia retaliated with deadly force, and Timber was in ruins, thousands of people in need of refuge. To the south of Timber, near the coast, tent cities popped up to house the displaced, many of them children.

Edea took in a pair of orphans as a favor to a friend, though they could scarcely afford to house more. They were already operating at a deficit and rarely used the electricity anymore to save money, and the house went without major repairs, but Edea didn't have the heart to say no.

Both children were wounded in the siege. Raijin's leg would heal, but there was no saving Fujin's eye. Xu stitched her a eye patch out of leftover purple satin from the sewing box and helped her style her pale hair so she could show it off. Fujin colored the patch black with permanent marker and punched Raijin when he suggested adding lace.

Seifer befriended them immediately. The three were nearly inseperable and always up to no good, especially after Seifer discovered they too possessed latent magical talents and felt less a freak for it - he'd tried to compare notes with Quistis, but her early experience in foster care discouraged her to the point of hiding it.

Not long after Raijin and Fujin came to stay, in the middle of the night, Edea woke Ellone from sound sleep and asked her to pack a bag. Ellone did without question, but was surprised when she was ushered to the beach and into a small boat on the shore. Cid rowed them through fog so thick, she couldn't see the lights of home, and no one explained to her what was going on.

Without saying goodbye, without any warning to the children, Ellone was gone in the night to parts unknown, and no one would tell her why.

In the morning, she sensed Seifer's rage from a hundred miles away. She lay in her bunk aboard the ship, beneath too many blankets, her skin crawling, and she cried for the first time in years.

In her mind, she saw Seifer - red faced, tears streaking through dirt stained cheeks, hurling rocks at the back windows of the orphanage.

One by one, the panes fractured, and bits of glass glittered like starlight in the grass.

 _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I hate you, Elle!_

Nearby, Squall, age nine, sat alone, facing the sea and folded in on himself as his eyes searched the horizon for any sign Ellone might be coming back.


	3. Chapter 3

_**"We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and maybe, sometimes, justice rises from the flames."**_

 _~Nancy Gibbs_

* * *

2

* * *

Squall stared at the broken, boarded-over back windows of the house as he hung out the laundry on the line to dry. Three years since Ellone and Matron left and no one bothered to replace the panes. Bits of glass still peeked from the tall grass, but time and exposure to the elements dulled their sheen to a dusty, gray patina. Some day, someone was going to cut themselves, but no one bothered to clean up the remnants and Seifer wouldn't do it himself.

It was cold and dark in that back room. Raijin nicknamed it "The Cave," and he wasn't so far off. With seven teenagers crammed into a cavernous, drafty stone room, lights out after eight to save on electricity and only an oil lantern for illumination, it was less a joke than it seemed.

Every now and then, Cid mumbled something about buying replacement panes, but he never did. Not that Squall expected him to. Cid occasionally talked about improvements, then forgot about them or ignored them. Money for repairs was hard to come by. Which was why the pipe under the kitchen sink leaked, and the toilet in the front bath overflowed, and why they still bathed in a metal trough instead of an actual tub. The roof leaked in four places, and there were bats living in the eaves, birds made nests in the gutters, and occasionally in the stovepipe, which caused the house to fill with smoke every time they used the wood stove.

Where ever Matron and Ellone were, it had to be better than here.

He pinned the last of the laundry to the line and took the basket inside. At the table, Quistis had her face stuck in her history book – reading ahead, no doubt – and Zell was at the counter before an assembly line of day-old bread slices they got cheap from the bakery, jar of mustard in one hand and a butter knife in the other.

Squall hoped it wasn't baloney again. That was all they'd eaten for the last week and a half and he would kill for something else, anything else besides mustard and baloney on stale bread.

Xu breezed in with a bowl in her hands, Raijin behind her, wearing a huge, toothy grin.

"My chickens made eggs, ya know?" he announced.

"Good thing, too," Xu muttered, "They were about to become soup."

"You wouldn't do that, to 'em," Raijin said.

"I most certainly would," Xu said. "We don't need any more non-productive mouths to feed. We already have Seifer."

Squall frowned but didn't add his two cents. Seifer was surly and uncooperative, especially with Xu, but he did his share to keep the place from crumbling in on itself. The income from his part-time job kept them fed, and he and Zell were the only ones brave enough to climb up to the roof to patch the holes when the leaks got too bad.

"Eggs?" Zell perked up. "Fried baloney and eggs on toast!"

"Whatever, don't care," Xu said. She placed the bowl on the counter beside Zell. "There are tomatoes too."

Zell whooped as he counted the eggs in the bowl, high-fived Raijin, and busied himself with his new task.

"Seen Seifer?" Xu asked.

"Dunno," Squall said.

"What about Cid?"

"Probably still in his room."

"I swear to Hyne..." Xu muttered. "Go find Seifer."

It wasn't hard to find him. He was in the usual spot, in the lighthouse, staring out to sea.

"Xu wants you."

"Xu can eat me."

Squall didn't much care whether or not Seifer answered Xu's call. Squall's part was done and Seifer could do as he pleased.

He sat down opposite Seifer, his back to the wall, the heels of his too-big shoes against the weathered metal rail. Seifer stayed where he was, eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of Ellone and Matron's return.

"They're not coming back," Squall said.

"They'll come back," Seifer said.

"Whatever."

Squall understood Seifer's obsession, even if the rest didn't. He was there the morning Seifer found out they were gone, and he heard Cid's empty reassurances.

" _My Sorceresses left me too, son."_

Squall understood. Not how, or why, or even when, but now that he was older, he understood what Cid meant. Not that he knew how he should feel about it, or why Sis chose Seifer, of all people. He didn't ask questions no one would answer anyway.

Ellone and Matron were gone and it wasn't safe for them to return. Squall paid attention to the news. There were witch hunts going on in Galbadia, and with refugees bleeding into Centra seeking asylum and a fresh start, it wouldn't be long before Galbadia turned their eyes on the south.

"They'll come back," Seifer said. "I know it."

* * *

Rinoa stared out the window of her new home in the Palace of Dollet and frowned at the setting sun. From where she stood, she couldn't see the struggles of the citizens, only the colorful bands of pink and lavender and a sprinkling of stars above the sea. The view was deceptively beautiful and peaceful, but Rinoa knew too much to buy the lie entirely.

Below the evening sky and beyond the protection of the palace gates, evidence of Galbadia's victory showed in the blast marks in the square. Pits from gunfire were gouged into the walls of every building. Even now, a week later, the south end of the city was pungent with the odor of death, and the wounded still wandered the streets in need of care.

Dollet fought hard to keep their freedom, but they fell hard and fast as Galbadia overtook their small army within a matter of hours. Their surrender was unconditional.

Now, the ruling family and several Dolletian political leaders sat behind bars in D-District, charged with a slew of imaginary crimes that not even the best lawyer could defend in a Galbadian court. In the interim, Rinoa's father would manage the city and bring the remaining rebels under control. Rinoa was just along for the ride, and perhaps an education in the ways of war. It was no secret Caraway's sights were set on a political career for Rinoa, something she only held an interest in if she stood on the other side of the line.

She turned away from the window and eyed the dress on the bed. It was beautiful, made of fine Trabian silk, with shoes to match, but Rinoa was not interested in attending a formal social gathering full of politicians and miltary types in the wake of a massacre. They would eat caviar and pate, while the people just a few blocks away would be lucky to eat at all.

Her father wouldn't hear a word of argument, nor would he listen to her concerns about the welfare of these people. Caraway believed a fifteen-year-old girl knew nothing of the world, and maybe he was right. But Rinoa knew right from wrong, and sitting down to a seven course meal while half the city starved was wrong. Mistreating the people he meant to rule was wrong.

Still, she dressed and did her hair the way her father liked, and she readied herself to play the prim, proper and obedient daughter of the G-Army's most celebrated General.

Downstairs, she put on a fake smile and accepted greetings from her father's associates, all the while, wishing herself somewhere where she could do some good. They asked questions about her education and how she was settling in, and her father answered for her, as if he didn't trust her ability to speak for herself. The more it happened, the more irritated she became, until she excused herself, swiped a bottle of champagne from the bar when no one was looking and retreated to the balcony at the back of the Palace ballroom.

To her surprise, it was already occupied. A tall young man she recognized by posture alone stood with his face turned to the sky. He was as out of place here as Rinoa, and it showed. His formal military jacket hung from his shoulders, the toggles undone, his pants baggy and a little too short.

He turned as she stepped outside, revealing a long, narrow face and dark blue eyes. He smiled impishly at the bottle in her hand and wiggled his eyebrows.

"The lady comes bearing gifts," he drawled. "This party just got a little more interesting."

His rakish gaze swept over her and Rinoa rolled her eyes, as unmoved by his charming smile as she'd been the first time they met.

"You look stunning in that dress," he said. "Nice legs."

"Stare any harder and your eyes are going to fall right out of your head, Kinneas."

"Can't help myself," he said. "Pretty girls just move my furniture."

"That's gross."

"Did it hurt?" he asked.

"What?"

"When you fell from heaven..."

Rinoa snorted. "That line actually work for you?"

"Not yet," he admitted. "Tryin' a few different ones out. But, I think you might be immune to my charm, anyway."

"Lines like that, I would be surprised if I was the only one."

"Ouch," he said. "Don't spare my fragile male ego or anything."

"Oh, don't worry. I won't."

Rinoa stepped up to the rail and uncorked the champagne bottle and aimed it over the edge of the balcony as the cork shot out into the night and foam spilled from the neck.

Irvine opened his mouth, one corner hitched up in a smirk but Rinoa cut him off.

"Say it, and I will push you off the balcony, Kinneas."

They met a year ago, at a similar party in Deling City in celebration of some victory or another. Irvine, at fifteen, proved himself an exceptional marksman during a conflict, taking out the head of the Timber Resistance and his second with two clean shots from a distance of 1000 meters in breezy conditions. Apparently, that was hard to do, especially for a recruit fresh out of basic.

Caraway paraded the gangly boy around like he was his own son and invited him to events and parties, brought him to meet Vinzer Deling himself, and later arranged for Irvine to escort Rinoa to a débutante ball hosted by one of Rinoa's wealthy classmates. Rinoa spent the evening lecturing him on feminism until his eyes glazed over, and at the end of the night, he decided to go in for the kiss. Rinoa knocked him silly and lectured him about consent for twenty minutes before he apologized and then tried again.

They weren't exactly friends, but friendly enough to prefer each other's company over that of a bunch of fat politicians and career military men who talked endlessly about the war effort and cimpared rhe size of their swollen bank accounts.

"I don't know why they keep inviting me to these damn things," Irvine said. "I got nothin' to say to those guys."

"When Caraway says jump, everyone around him says how high," she said. "You included."

"And you."

"And me," she agreed and lifted the bottle to the sky.

"You ever think about all this?" he asked. "What Deling's doing?"

"That's subversive talk, Kinneas," she warned. "Don't forget where you are."

"Don't tell me you're okay with bein' here," he said. "I know enough about your feelings on social justice and the like to know you're not lookin' away when you see it."

"Sometimes..." she began, but broke off. This was neither the time, nor the place to discuss her feelings about the war, or Vinzer Deling, or his quest to conquer the world. People had gone to prison for less.

"Yeah, me too," he agreed and snatched the bottle from her hand. "Me too."

They shared the champagne, which Irvine admitted he wasn't a fan of, but drank anyway to pass the time. It went straight to Rinoa's head and rather than leave her giddy, it turned her already sour mood dark.

"How did you wind up Galbadia's Premier Sharpshooter?" she wondered. "You're what, sixteen?"

"I... I've been a war orphan, twice," he said. "Second time, it was starve to death in the streets, a work camp for insurgents, or join the army."

"I'm sorry..." she said. "I didn't know."

"That's the hand life dealt me," he said mildly. "No sense in thinkin' too hard about it. My adopted parents were arrested for subversive activities and I wound up in an orphanage in Galbadia. One day this recruiter came around. Me and some other boys were out back, plinkin' cans with a BB gun... I was damn good with that stupid thing but it was just a toy, you know? Not like we were shootin' squirrels or somethin'..."

He trailed off and lapsed into silence, swallowed down a mouthful of the champagne and leaned his forearms against the rail. He was basically a hostage, kept and trained by the same people that took his family from him and orphaned him a second time.

"They didn't give me much of a choice," he said. "Wound up in a military barracks a day later with about ten other boys, all selected for this special training program. Normally, you gotta be sixteen to join up, right? Yeah, well, we were exceptions..."

"How do you not hate them?" she asked.

"You do what you gotta to survive," he said. "I mean, compared to everyone else, you got it pretty good, but I bet you fake your way through it a lot, too."

He was right. She faked smiles when she was supposed to, all the while quietly seething over the injustices she saw all around her.

"That's awful," Rinoa said. "I had no idea they were doing that."

"There's a lot you don't know," he said. "And before you get all pissy about it, I don't mean so much that you've privileged and sheltered, which you _are_ , I mean... It ain't what it looks like from the outside. Deling's got his eyes set on this continent and everything beyond and there's no one to stop him, except maybe Esthar, but they've got their borders locked down so tight we don't even know what's on the other side."

"My father thinks Esthar will stay out of it."

"They will," Irvine agreed. "Until we come knockin' on their door, and believe me, I've heard enough at these shindigs to know that's not an if, but a _when_."

"Why?" she wondered. "Esthar isn't even a threat. As far as I know, they want nothing to do with the rest of the world."

"Well, seeing as Deling can't seem to find himself a Sorceress, and Esthar knows what happened to Adel, I suppose that's reason enough."

Rinoa wondered why it was so important to Deling to find a Sorceress. With the world's largest army at his disposal, was it really necessary?

"If I were you, I'd learn as much as I could," Irvine said, "and use it how you see fit. One girl with courage and conviction is a hell of a lot more powerful than a dictator who hides behind an army, in my humble opinion."

"You're suggesting treason," she whispered.

"Not treason," he said, lifted the champagne bottle in mock toast. "Revolution."

* * *

Seifer stumbled up the steps from the beach and smiled as he caught a whiff of perfume on the collar of his jacket. She tasted of gin and smelled of flowers, all too willing to spend the evening alone with him in the lighthouse. He couldn't even remember her name. A girl from school, older, and so far outside his social circle their orbits never crossed. On Monday, she would pretend she didn't know him, and he would pretend the same.

That was fine with Seifer. What little conversation they'd shared wasn't particularly stimulating, and she was more focused on things that didn't involve talking anyway.

He stumbled over a loose stone in the top step, skidded and nearly crashed into the clothes line. With a drunken snort, he righted himself and held onto the pole until the world stopped spinning. When it did, he skirted the perimeter of the house and followed the wall to the front door.

It was nearly 3am, and he'd rather not face a lecture from Quistis, who was only three months older but fancied herself as a big sister who was the boss of everything.

Why she bothered, Seifer didn't know. It wasn't as if Cid would do anything about it. He would shake his head, mumble something about curfew, then return to his steady diet of crossword puzzles and whiskey. Seifer would ignore it and do what he pleased anyway.

He kicked off his battered wellies and left them beside the front door. A hiss rose up from the bushes.

Startled, he turned and saw a single, glowing green eye peering back at him. Fujin's favorite old one-eyed tomcat, which Seifer would gladly chase off if not for the cat's help keeping the rodents out of the house. The ones he didn't eat were often left on the doorstep as a gift for his mistress.

"Git," he hissed back, then quietly eased the door open and slipped into the foyer.

A single candle in a jelly jar burned at the table in the kitchen, where Cid was passed out in his chair with one hand clenched around a glass full of amber liquid.

Seifer padded into the kitchen, removed the glass from Cid's hand and drank it down in one gulp. He dropped into the chair opposite the sleeping man, uncapped the bottle and poured a measure into the glass. He lifted it and stared through the whiskey at the flickering candle, too drunk himself to judge Cid for his drunkenness, but resentful just the same.

Cid was supposed to look after them, but he spent most nights like this, drunk and forlorn and staring through walls as his longing for his Sorceress ate him alive. He slept till noon or later, and barely lifted a finger to help out, too lost in his own misery to provide for them. Meanwhile, every one of the kids worked their asses off doing odd jobs to pay for repairs and necessities and hunted or bartered for food, while this joker slipped further and further into despair.

"Mine left me too, ya dick," he muttered and swallowed another mouthful of the whiskey. "Can't afford to keep the lights on, but you always have your booze, don't you?"

Seifer was not immune to Ellone's absence, or to the craving for something he couldn't reach. He tried to kill it with girls and fighting and alcohol, but it never entirely went away. He hadn't seen Ellone since he was ten, and seven long years down the road, there wasn't a day that went by he didn't miss her. But he wasn't going to destroy himself waiting for her either, even if he still went up to the lighthouse to search the horizon for any sign of her return.

Squall shuffled into the kitchen, glared at Cid and slipped into a chair between them. Without a word, he reached for the bottle of whiskey, took a sip and dragged a hand over his eyes.

"He's not eating," Squall said and shoved the bottle back to Seifer.

"And?" Seifer asked. "He's an adult. He can do what he wants."

"Roof's leaking again," Squall said. "Be nice if _what he wants_ included fixing it. Tired of living in a shit hole."

"Again?" Seifer sighed. He rubbed his tired eyes. "I'll look at it in the morning. Get Chicken-face to help me."

Squall's eyes slid over to him and then back to Cid as the man let out a loud, grunt-murmur and a snort.

"Where were you?" Squall asked.

Seifer flashed a satisfied smirk and stretched his arms over his head, the cat that got the cream _and_ the canary both and had his fill.

"Out. Doing things."

"Doing who?"

Seifer's smirk grew into a grin and he ruffled Squall's bangs. He wasn't about to share details, and Squall didn't want to hear them anyway.

"Puberty finally creeping up on you, little brother?"

Squall scowled, but a blush crept up over his cheeks and he shook his head.

"Never mind," Squall said. "Don't care."

Seifer snickered and finished the whiskey in his glass. They both stared at the now snoring Cid.

"What did we do to get stuck with this moron?" Squall wondered and kicked the leg of Cid's chair. Cid gave a grunt, but didn't budge.

"Crap-shoot," Seifer said. "God rolled the dice, we lost."

Squall snorted and folded his arms over the table, hunched over, all bony and gangly and surly as only a sixteen-year-old could be.

They polished off the rest of the bottle in silence, and Seifer thought about how he and his siblings would spend their weekend earning enough Gil to survive the next week while other kids did dumb teenager shit. Beach parties and off-roading out in the desert.

Times were tough for everyone with the war going on, but Seifer was too aware of how others were a lot better off. Kids from the Kramer house were the butt of jokes for their threadbare clothing, for being the recipients of the yearly holiday food drive, which amounted to all the undesirable things that people didn't want – canned cabbage and pumpkin, beets, processed meat products - until Seifer told them to take their charity and blow it out their asses.

They'd all grown up defending themselves against bullies that poked fun at their poverty, as if being poor, orphan kids was something to laugh at. None of them asked for this, and really, who gave a damn what someone else wore or ate for lunch?

Seifer vowed time and time again to strike out on his own, do his own thing, but it wasn't right to leave these guys to fend for themselves. They'd starve to death if Seifer wasn't there to find ways to earn some quick cash and Squall didn't spend every other afternoon out hunting and Raijin didn't bother tending his garden and his hens. Quistis managed the household budget now that Xu was gone, but she wasn't particularly skilled at negotiating prices for labor or goods. Squall was inside his own head too damn much, and Zell was too all over the place. Fujin might step up, but chances were, if Seifer left, she and Raijin would follow.

Squall poked Cid's cheek and sneered when the man snorted at him.

"Think we should put him to bed?"

"Nah," Seifer said. "Not worth the trouble."

* * *

Edea wasn't herself.

Ellone watched from her place on the deck of the Esper, the cross-stitch in her lap forgotten as the woman paced and talked to herself. Edea's normally sleek, well-kept tresses were a tangled mess, and not just from the wind, and her dress was wrinkled and could use a good wash.

For several days now, Edea railed at shadows and muttered at the sky, her green eyes faded to a strange tawny-gold, and sometimes, she spoke in a language Ellone didn't understand.

She knew what this was, but she didn't know what to do, and Edea's madness infected Ellone with a sharp paranoia she couldn't shake. It was like seeing her own future before her very eyes, and she peered into mirrors when she was alone to see if her own eyes were different.

Everyone noticed it. The ship's crew, the orphans they cared for. Edea, who couldn't have children of her own, surrounded herself with little ones to satisfy her need to mother and care for others, now ignored them or cursed them or screamed when they tugged the skirt of her dress.

Edea collapsed to the deck in a heap, sobbing and pleading with whoever she imagined was there and Ellone went to her side, only to be pushed away with clawed hands and a snarl of rage.

"Maybe you should get some rest," Ellone said. "We'll go ashore, okay? Find a doctor?"

Edea lifted her gaze and stared at Ellone. Her eyes blazed a bright yellow-gold, her pupils irregular, the shape like a club on a playing card.

"You can't be here, Ellone," she said. "I can't protect you anymore."

"We're safe," Ellone promised. "I made sure we're protected, just like you taught me."

Edea screamed and raked her fingernails down the sides of her face, leaving dark lines of blood on her cheeks. Ellone backed away, afraid of Edea, really _afraid_ , for the first time since she'd found herself in the woman's care so long ago.

She fled her mentor and caregiver and went straight to the captain's quarters. She banged on the door until he opened it, ignored his annoyance, and pushed inside the room.

"What's the closest port?" she asked.

"Balamb, but I ain't getting' anywhere near that place, what with Galbadia tryin' to invade," he said. "S'pose we could make Fisherman's Horizon in a day or two, depending on the wind. Why?"

"I need to get a letter or a telegram to someone as soon as possible. It's urgent."

"You're a witch, ain't ya?" he asked. "I reckon you can teleport yourself where you need to go if you're in a hurry."

Ellone didn't know how. That was one of many things Edea never taught her. Maybe, the woman didn't know how to herself, or maybe it was something that never occurred to her to teach, but either way, Ellone didn't trust herself to wind up where she was supposed to.

"That's not an option," she said.

"S'pose I could try the radio," he said. "Frequency's been busted for years. Only half the communications get heard..."

"I need a guarantee my message will get to the intended recipient," she said.

"Ain't no guarantees no more, child," the Captain said. "We thought we had it bad with Adel, but this Deling guy, he ain't even a witch, and he's a thousand times worse."

Ellone already knew this from listening to the staticy, spotty reports on the radio, and from word while on land. Deling had his mind set on ruling the whole world, and everyone suffered because of it.

"Is there any way into Esthar?" she asked.

The Captain laughed and shook his head.

"You're more likely to see a chocobo flying than get anywhere near it," he said. "I hear the only way in is through FH, but you won't get far. They say the city's invisible, and most people who try wind up comin' back or dead out in the salt flats."

If Laguna was alive, he could help. There must be some way to find out and get a message to him. Cid was her other option, but she wasn't so sure he would be of any help. The handful of images she got from Seifer's head were not promising, as it looked as though he was deteriorating along with Edea.

"How far to the Cape of Good Hope?"

"Now that's a solid month and a half, maybe two," he said. "We can't go through Galbadian waters to get there, so we gotta go 'round, unless you feel like getting' into a brawl with the G-Navy."

Ellone considered her options. Take a chance and find a way into Esthar, which could take weeks and might prove futile, or go to Centra and see if Cid could break Edea out of her spell.

"Set a course for FH," she said as she mentally composed her message to Cid, "then plan for a trip to Centra."

* * *

Seifer dropped out of school to work full time at a butcher shop in town for crap pay, but it was steady work and the owner didn't care if he skimmed the trimmings to take home. After a few weeks of regular paychecks, Seifer paid off the debt to the electric company and got the lights turned back on because he was sick of cold showers and non-perishable food.

A few days later, a pipe burst in the kitchen, and they were back to square one, out of cash and behind on bills with water damage in the kitchen they had no money to repair. Cid stopped leaving his room, except to trek to town to buy booze while everyone was at work or school. Seifer hadn't a clue where the money for that came from until he noticed his meager savings was a little light.

He was pissed. Really pissed, but there was no point in a confrontation. Cid was so far gone, all he did when they spoke to him was nod or mutter an agreement, no matter what was said.

"You're an incompetent dill-hole, you know that?" Seifer said to him one afternoon.

Cid just nodded.

"Your mother was a Tonberry, ya know?" Raijin chimed in.

"Yes, yes, good," Cid said.

"I think Julia Heartilly's left the building, huh?" Squall murmured. "Think he even knows where he is?"

"Doubtful," Seifer said.

"SLACKER," Fujin added.

"Stop that," Quistis scolded. "Can't you see this isn't his fault?"

"Whose fault is it, then?" Seifer wondered.

Four pairs of eyes avoided his sweeping stare.

* * *

Squall got a part time job after school at a local chocobo farm to help pitch in with the bills. When he mentioned dropping out, too, Seifer threatened him with physical violence if he so much as suggested it again. He and Quistis were the smartest, and had the best hope of doing something with their lives besides this.

Quistis tutored, but quit after she punched the patriarch of the second richest family in town for repeated, inappropriate touching. Seifer and Squall slashed the tires of his extremely expensive convertible Tempest and Zell took a crowbar to the hood. Then, they left him unconscious on a sidewalk with a broken nose and short a few teeth. Quistis might have been bossy and too damn smart for her own good, but no one messed with the Posse and got away with it.

Sometimes, Seifer wondered if there was any point to their struggle. Every time they got ahead, there was always something waiting to set them back a few paces. Zell fell off the roof and broke his arm in two places while repairing the crumbling chimney, and curatives to fix it were expensive. The alternator in Cid's old truck died, and even with Zell and Fujin's DIY expertise, the parts cost more than they had. The compressor in the fridge conked out and the cost of replacing it was equal to purchasing a new ice box.

It never got easier, even with every one of them working to stay ahead.

One afternoon, as Seifer, Squall, Zell and Raijin split apart a log Raijin found on the side of the road to use as firewood, an unfamiliar car pulled up the drive. Wary, Seifer tightened his grip on his ax and eyed the two visitors as they climbed out. One was taller than Seifer, and thin, with deeply tanned skin and his dark hair in thin braids. The other was so large, Raijin looked puny in comparison.

"What do you want?" Seifer demanded as they approached. "If you're sellin' something, take off."

"Not much for greetings around here," the thinner man said.

"Yeah, well," Seifer said, "most people who come this far out aren't looking to make friends."

"Perhaps we can anyway," the man said. "I'm Kiros Seagill, Vice President of Esthar and this is my Master of War, General Ward Zabac."

Seifer snorted and raked his eyes over the both of them, sure these two were about to run a scam by him.

"I'm Seifer Almasy, Empress of Dollet," he said. "Care to come inside for a spot of tea and some finger sandwiches?"

Zabac smiled and gestured in Seifer's general direction.

"Ward is pleased to meet you, Your Majesty," Seagill said.

"Fantastic," Seifer said. "What do you want? We got shit to do."

Seagill's eyes swept over the building and took in the crumbling columns and the missing shingles on the roof and the overgrown front courtyard.

"We're here on behalf of President Loire of Esthar," he said. "As I'm sure you're aware, the situation with Galbadia has passed the point of no return. We are currently preparing to mount a defense against a likely invasion of our country."

"What's that got to do with us?"

"We came in hopes of recruiting capable young men and women to join our forces," he said. "Certainly some of those displaced by war would be interested in fighting back against the oppressor."

"Adel displaced us," Seifer said. "Refugee camp is about two miles up the road. Try there. Sure it's full of people who want revenge."

"The Estharian Army is not the Galbadian Army," Seagill said. "We take care of our soldiers and provide them adequate training, housing, nutrition, and opportunities for education and personal growth. If that is your concern, you need not fear."

Seifer leaned on his ax like it was a cane and stared at the man. Then he cast a glance over his shoulder at the others and was dismayed to see interest in both Squall and Zell's faces.

"At this very moment, Galbadia is about to launch another assault on Balamb," Seagill said. "They held off the first invasion, but they will not withstand a second. They're also aware Centra has become a hotbed of dissenters, and we expect they will launch an assault by year's end."

"So, like, Esthar? For real?" Zell asked. "It really exists?"

Zabac laughed silently, and Seifer realized, the man must be mute.

"Do you take women?"

Seifer swiveled around to where Quistis stood a few paces away, a long white envelope in her hand. He scowled and shook his head but she shrugged as if to say it couldn't hurt to listen to their offer.

"Of course," Seagill said. "All jobs in our army are open to women, and many make a lifelong career of service. With pension upon retirement, of course."

"If you live that long," Seifer muttered.

Seagill passed a pamplet to Quistis. Seifer spied a pair of blades at his wrists and grew even more suspicious. In this political climate, it was unwise to travel about without a weapon, but the more he thought about it, the more odd it seemed that the supposed VP and his War General were wandering around Centra without an entourage.

"Take a few days to think it over," Seagill said. "We will be staying in town if you have questions."

"Esthar was the enemy back in the day," Squall said. "Why should we trust you now?"

"Adel was the enemy," Seagill said. "We just want peace. Unfortunately, that means we must fight to keep it."

Zabac nudged Seagill and inclined his head at Squall. Seifer frowned and flicked his eyes back toward his younger brother, wondering what they saw that he didn't.

"Hmm, perhaps so," Seagill murmured. "We'll let you return to your work. Seek us out at the hotel if you're interested."

As the pair left, Seifer looked at his family and at the varying degrees of curiosity in all of them. None of them said a word.

Quistis handed him the envelope. Without even seeing the name on the return line, Seifer sensed who it had come from. It was as if her hands left behind traces of herself on the paper, and it was the closest to her he'd felt in seven years.

He slipped his finger under the flap and tore it open, half eager to read what words she'd put on the page, and half full of resentment for the way thoughts of her still caused him heartache.

But she always would, wouldn't she?


	4. Chapter 4

The soldiers came in the middle of dinner. They didn't even knock, they just barged right on in and started shouting things at Selphie's parents and siblings and the next thing she knew, she and her two brothers were dragged away from the table and out into the cold Trabian snow without jackets or shoes.

"What's the big idea?!" she demanded. "It's freezing out here!"

One of the soldiers backhanded her, his knuckles striking her hard across the cheek. It hurt so much, Selphie was left without words and too stunned to fight back. Her wrists were cuffed behind her back and she was separated from the boys and herded into the back of a G-Army vehicle, along with six other girls wearing identical expressions of terror.

The news about what was going on in Galbadia was all people in town talked about, but Selphie never believed the fighting or oppression would reach Trabian shores. Galbadia seemed a far away and imaginary place, like some mythical land of evil in a fairy tale she once heard. Now that it was happening here, it was more of a nightmare that Selphie didn't know how to wake from.

If not for the pair of soldiers in the back with them, Selphie would declare mutiny and attempt escape, but those guys were scary looking and they had guns.

Selphie was too angry to cry like the other girls. She wasn't so indifferent to the news coming out of Galbadia that she didn't understand what or why this was happening, but she wasn't special or magically talented in any way. As far as she knew that's what Galbadia was looking for, and there was no reason for them to be _kidnapped_ in the middle of dinner, and no reason at all to take the boys, too.

By dawn, they arrived at the southernmost port in Trabia and were taken to a tent and expected to passively submit to blood tests and physical exams that no one wanted to explain. Selphie was hit again when she asked what it was for and this time, her ears rang with a tinny sound and her eyes watered and she tasted blood on the back of her tongue.

"Take this one to the lock-up," a soldier said and lifted Selphie up by her hair. "Seems she needs to be taught how to follow directions."

"Lemmie go!"

Selphie fought her captors, heedless of the danger or the guns or what awaited her for her resistance. A needle plunged deep into the meat of her arm and the world went fuzzy. When she woke, she was somewhere warmer, lying in a bed of pine straw and dirt and her wrists bound behind her back.

She sat up, gazed around, and tried to ignore the throb of pain behind her eyes. A tall fence stretched around a twelve-by-twelve pen, topped with coils of razor wire and threads of electrical wire, like the kind used to keep animals from escaping. In the distance were mountains, but they were not Selphie's mountains. There was no snow, and the rocks were all the wrong color.

Several other women sat gathered in the middle bound the same way. Their hair was stringy and their faces smudged with dirt, and they stared blankly into the distance as if they'd lost all hope.

With difficulty, Selphie pushed to her knees and shuffled her way over to them as much out of curiosity as for comfort. Only one looked up when she approached, her dark brown eyes hard and wary. Selphie ignored the warning in her expression and settled down next to her as the others cast their eyes aside.

"Hi," Selphie chirped. "I'm Selphie."

"Shut up," the young woman hissed, "unless you'd like a bullet in your head."

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere near Dollet, I think," the woman said. "Keep your damn voice down."

Dollet? That wasn't the answer Selphie expected. Southern Trabia, maybe, and it was hard to believe she'd been unconscious long enough to transport her to the Galbadian continent.

"Holy chocobos," Selphie breathed. "So, _why_ are we here?"

"I assume it's because in your case, you won't keep your mouth shut," the woman said.

Selphie frowned at the woman and huffed at her rudeness.

"What's wrong with asking questions?" Selphie demanded. "Anyway, what's your name? And why are you here?"

"It's Xu," the woman said. "And I suggested an alternative place a G-Army grunt might want to stick the barrel of his gun besides in my face."

Selphie blinked at the woman. _Xu._ Did she know a Xu? She wracked her brain, but came up with nothing but a vague impression of a rocky beach and slate-blue water.

Xu quietly explained that their disobedience earned them a stay in a Galbadian labor camp – a place for insurgents and dissenters, now that D-District was too full to house more. They would be fed once a day and taken in for "deprogramming," which according to Xu meant getting yelled at and knocked around if they didn't agree with Deling's politics.

"I refuse," Xu said flatly. "I didn't struggle my whole life, just to have some dimwit fascists tell me what I'm supposed to believe in."

Selphie scooted so that she sat shoulder to shoulder with the older girl. Xu cast her a narrow sideways glance, scrutinizing her in silence.

"So, Selphie, how are we getting out of here?"

* * *

The sitting room of the Dolletian Palace sure was fancy. And Caraway was late.

Irvine shifted uncomfortably and gazed at all the opulence around him. Porcelain vases and hand woven rugs and marble statues. He didn't understand the point of beautiful things that served no purpose. He appreciated things that were aesthetically pleasing, and he understood owning an item or two that pleased the eye, but he didn't understand living in a place that was essentially a private museum, full of things no one was allowed to touch.

The couch he sat upon was upholstered in expensive silk too delicate and fine for Irvine's common derrière, but the fine lead crystal glass he sipped from held water no better than the plastic ones in the barracks. Irvine was sure the cognac in that glass cost more per bottle than the average soldier's annual income.

Caraway invited him to lunch, an honor reserved only for the General's most esteemed associates, and Irvine couldn't help but wonder why he was here. He was a good shot with a rifle, but he was no high ranking officer, nor a politician. Sure, they liked to parade him around at parties and claim he was their secret weapon against the rebellion and they showered him with praise, but Galbadia didn't promote based on skill. They kept their most skilled operatives where they were.

Which begged the question, why was he here?

Over the years, Irvine learned the only way to survive was to play the game. He presented himself as an easy-going guy and didn't quibble when they told him to point his rifle and shoot. He would do the same now. He would nod his head and smile, play the eager young prodigy, assimilate himself into their culture, learn, study, and use what he could to his advantage.

When he was younger, he believed the world's struggles could be solved if all the political leaders were locked in a room until they agreed upon terms of peace. At heart, Irvine was more a pacifist than he would have anyone believe, and he solved his own problems with discussion and not fists or weapons, but the more he saw and learned of the struggles going on outside, the less he believed it would be so easy. Vinzer Deling was not a man who saw value in negotiation and Irvine saw no other end to this but war.

And Irvine had no choice but to be a tool in that war.

Irvine waited almost half an hour before Caraway showed up. He greeted Irvine warmly and offered his hand.

"There's my star sharpshooter," he said and Irvine was forced to give a bashful smile and shake his hand. "Thanks for waiting."

"Not a problem, sir," Irvine said. "I was just admiring the art."

"Impressive, isn't it?" Caraway said. "If there's one thing I can say about Dolletians, it's that they have an eye for beauty."

"That they do, sir."

"Come, lunch awaits and we have important matters to discuss."

Irvine followed him to a private outdoor deck, where an impressive culinary spread awaited them, plates edged in real gold laden with foods he couldn't identify. The irony of a twice-orphaned kid, dining on North Trabian caviar and stuffed lobster and chocobo pate while the people of Dollet fought over scraps of moldy bread hit a little too close to home.

He was used to food prepared in bulk, in industrial kitchens. Things that came out of cans labeled "meat product," and over-processed and over-cooked vegetables preserved in chemicals. As he sampled the fare, he decided he much preferred the meatloaf at the barracks to the pate, and powdered egg scramble to the pungent caviar. He ate everything without complaint and pretended the lobster was delicious when really, the texture and flavor was strange and nearly unpalatable to his unrefined taste buds.

The only thing he really enjoyed was the second glass of cognac, which he technically wasn't old enough to drink, but maybe that was just the thrill of the forbidden.

"I'm wondering if I can ask you for a favor in confidence," Caraway said as he helped himself to a second serving of lobster. "It's a personal request, not a professional one."

Irvine wondered what Caraway could possibly need from him. Unless it was an off-books job, Irvine didn't have much to offer.

"Try me," Irvine said.

"I've noticed you and my daughter have become friendly."

"If by friendly, you mean less hostile, then yeah..."

Caraway smiled. "Rinoa can be difficult. She inherited my tenacity, to be sure."

Irvine waited for him to continue, positive they were to be set up on another date, in spite of how badly the last one ended.

"Today is Rinoa's birthday," Caraway said. "She doesn't have many friends, especially here. I'd like for you to take her out and show her a good time to celebrate."

"Here?" Irvine wondered. "Don't mean to be contrary, sir, but this is a war zone, isn't it?"

"You'll be perfectly safe," Caraway assured him. "I've arranged for a car and a secured location for dinner and dancing among loyalists and friends. All you have to do is accompany her."

Was this guy for real?

"With all due respect," Irvine said, "I can't say Rinoa's interested in dating me, especially if you're encouraging it. Seems to me like she's the kind of girl who wants to decide these things for herself."

Caraway smiled and sipped his cognac.

"Rinoa is still young, and she has a lot of ideas and opinions about things she knows nothing about," Caraway said. "And I said nothing about romance. I just ask that you accompany her, though I'm not opposed to an eventual relationship. When you are both of age and you have reached an acceptable rank to deserve her."

Irvine refrained from laughing or rolling his eyes, but he wished he could do both. The way the man said it was like his daughter's love life was a business arrangement.

"Why me, sir?"

"Because she hasn't insisted I keep you away from her," Caraway said, "and because I trust that you'll be respectful."

Dumbfounded, Irvine sipped his cognac and stared passively back at Caraway.

"I'll do my best, sir," Irvine said.

"Good," Caraway said, matter decided. "There is one other thing, son..."

* * *

Seifer unfolded and refolded the letter in his hands and stared out at the slate-blue sea from the deck of the lighthouse. The letter, addressed to Cid, contained only three words: _We're coming home._

He didn't know how he felt about that, after this many years apart. He understood now, why they left, but those lingering feelings from childhood – the abandonment, the betrayal, the grief – those things were hard to forget, and he wondered if Matron knew what had become of Cid. Surely, she didn't know, or else she would be here to pick him up and put him back together.

The letter was unsigned, but Seifer instinctively recognized Ellone's handwriting, even with nothing to compare it to. He wondered what she would look like now, if the idealized and childish memory of her lived up to reality. He wondered, if he asked, if she would release him from the bond that he sometimes resented and sometimes didn't know if he could live without. Even if his impressions over the years were few, and communications were even fewer, it was as much a part of him as his extremities.

No one ever explained why she chose him, or why it left him feeling so empty when he was alone. As he stared up at the sky, he felt her more acutely than he had in years. He supposed it was because of the letter that he was more aware of her. Anticipation heightened the little used connection, and he wondered if she felt the same.

Footsteps on the stairs broke him from his thoughts, but he didn't turn toward the sound, knowing full well who it was. Squall was the only one who sought him out here. The rest preferred not to face his ill temper and left him to his own devices, but Squall was the lone exception, unfazed by Seifer's moods or mouth.

He stashed the letter in the pocket of his threadbare coat as Squall came into view and slipped onto the concrete wall and straddled it.

"Let me guess," Seifer said. "You wanna go off and play boy-hero."

Squall shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"You don't think it's weird?" Seifer asked. "Esthar sending out supposed big-wigs to recruit? Seems fishy to me."

Squall nodded and pushed his bangs out of his eyes.

"They're right, though," Squall said. "It's only a matter of time before Galbadia's on our doorstep. I bet they'd be really interested in Quistis. Fujin too. Not much we could do to stop them if they wanted to take them away."

"We can sure as hell try," Seifer fired back. "They'll take 'em over my dead body."

Squall's expression didn't change, but Seifer knew him well enough to detect his skepticism in his subtle shift of posture.

"Six of us against an army?" Squall asked. "No weapons or training, just some parlor tricks and sheer defiance?"

Squall had a point, but Seifer preferred not to acknowledge it.

"What makes you think Esthar's gonna be any different?"

"Whatever," Squall said with a shrug. "I didn't say I was going. Zell and Quistis are pretty sold on the idea."

Seifer kicked the rail and shoved a hand in his pocket to rub his thumb over the creased edge of Ellone's letter. He almost put it into Squall's hands, but for now, that was a secret he wanted to keep to himself. Maybe just to prove them wrong when Ellone and Edea showed up, after years of believing them gone for good.

"I'm not gonna stop them if they wanna go," Seifer said. "Fewer mouths to feed or people to worry about, if you ask me."

"You haven't even considered it."

It was a statement of fact, not a question.

"I know my place," Seifer said.

Squall fell silent and Seifer shifted under his cool, appraising stare.

"Why was it you?" Squall asked.

Seifer, taken aback, looked at his younger sibling and realized, Squall knew all along and never said anything. Squall was far more observant than the rest, and at least he had the good sense to keep his mouth shut about it.

"I've known a long time," Squall said. "I always wondered. She's my sister, but she picked you."

Seifer nodded to himself and rubbed his thumb over the letter again like it was a talisman.

"I've been asking myself that question my whole life," Seifer said. "I don't know any more than you do."

"What if they never come back?"

"They will."

Squall rolled his eyes but let the subject drop. They sat in silence for a while, the crash of the waves below the only sound. Seifer closed his eyes and thought about the future and what he envisioned wasn't pretty.

This place wasn't much. It was a shit-hole, if he was being honest with himself, but it was home. They were safe here with their secrets, making the best of the situation they were in, but when Galbadia came knocking, they would be forced to make their choices. The idea that the six of them could defend this shitty little homestead was laughable. Galbadia, as inept as they were rumored to be, would overpower them by their sheer numbers, and if they were lucky, they would all die in the stand-off. Otherwise, they would be rounded up and held as dissenters or be forced into service as so many others in Timber and Dollet were being forced to do.

That was no way to live, and even their hand-to-mouth existence in Cid's care was preferable to their other options.

For the first time since Seagill visited, Seifer saw how it might be the lesser of evils. A way out for the others, a way to circumvent a worse fate.

"You should join up, kid," Seifer said. "No sense in sticking around here."

"What about you?"

"Maybe fate has another plan for me."

Squall scoffed but didn't comment.

"The others should go, too," he said. "I'd rather you guys join the side that isn't trying to force their rule on the rest of the world than stay here and get yourselves killed."

Squall nodded thoughtfully and folded his arms over his chest.

"She won't blame you if you go, too," Squall said.

"Someone's gotta look out for Cid," Seifer said with a smirk. "Someone's gotta make sure he's got his booze and crossword puzzles."

Squall laughed softly and pushed to his feet. He stepped up to the rail and angled his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. Seifer settled back and let his eyes drift shut again and tried to picture what Ellone looked like now. He was eighteen, she was twenty-two. Not a girl anymore, and try as he might, the images in his head were those of the fourteen-year-old girl who left him to fend for himself.

That was unfair. Seifer doubted she was given much choice in the matter.

"A ship," Squall said over the din of the crashing of waves. "See it?"

Seifer sat up and followed Squall's gaze to the horizon, where not so far away, a ship with rearward sails angled toward the coast. That strange tug in his chest became a steady ache as he rose to his feet and joined Squall at the rail.

 _Ellone._

"Well, I'll be damned."

* * *

Rinoa keyed in the combination to her father's safe – her mother's birthday of all things – and turned the lock. It gave a satisfying click as the door sung open and she reached inside to retrieve a bundle of cash and the pistol her father kept there for emergencies. She slipped both items into her jeweled handbag and closed the safe with a triumphant smile.

One would think a man as smart as her father would use a less obvious combination for his most important documents and items, but that was to her benefit. It was his own fault she was doing this, after the conversation she overheard between himself and Irvine Kinneas over lunch earlier. It was one thing to set her up on a date with the young sharpshooter, but it was another to orchestrate her life down to the minutia, he deserved it. She was no thief, but her actions were necessary. She could no longer let her father make her choices for her, and she could no longer sit idly by and do nothing.

Downstairs, her father chatted over glasses of expensive cognac, and in spite of herself, Rinoa smiled. Irvine wore a tailored tux and in his hand was a black stetson. He appeared taller, and his long hair was in a neat braid and he looked so much more the part of the young upstart than the last time they crossed paths.

"Well don't you look like a proper gentleman," she said. "Nice hat, though I don't think it goes with your outfit."

"You can take a boy out of the country," he mused with a lopsided grin. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you," she said politely. "Are you ready to go?"

"Whenever you are," he said.

Rinoa turned to her father and on impulse, threw her arms around him and hugged him a little too tight. They had their differences, but he was her father. Their lives were about to go in separate directions, and who knew when they would see one another again? Or how he would see her when she stood on the other side of the line?

"Have a good time, sweetheart," he said and pressed a rare kiss to her cheek. "Happy birthday."

She thanked him and smoothed her hands over the sky blue silk of her dress.

"Kinneas, I expect you'll take good care of my daughter."

"Of course, Sir," Irvine said. "She's in good hands."

Irvine offered his arm and Rinoa took it, and her stomach filled with butterflies. Not because her date was handsome and charming and on his way up the political ladder thanks to her father's attentions, but because there were a lot of things that could go wrong. She counted on Irvine's hidden subversive streak to get her where she needed to be, but if he resisted her plan, she would have to take matters into her own hands and force him.

She sat through a five course meal of delicacies and local cuisine, and though her anxiety urged her to drink to take the edge off, she refrained as Irvine indulged. He told her tales about life in the barracks and about awkward moments that came from inserting a simple country boy into the world of the elite. In any other circumstances, Rinoa would find his stories of silverware misidentification humorous, but she was too keyed up to do more than offer a distracted smile or two.

It was too bad what she was about to do would make him a fugitive. She'd grown to enjoy his company over the last year or so. The more she learned about him, the less of the girl-crazy pervert he seemed. Under all that easy flirting was a serious, thoughtful young man that shared her frustration with the world as it was, but was in no position to fight back.

Irvine wasn't to blame for his circumstances any more than Rinoa was. It wasn't his fault Caraway forced notoriety on him, nor that he was a fish out of water among the politicians and military officials. It wasn't his fault some sharp-eyed recruiter saw potential in him and the G-Army exploited it. He was as much a pawn as Rinoa when it came down to it.

Well, no more. Whether he liked it or not, her father's plans to return her to Deling City following her birthday festivities would be thwarted, and he could either join her or be dragged along for the ride.

"You all right?" he asked as he led her to the dance floor. "You haven't bent my ear about sexism in politics or the plight of the downtrodden all night."

"Can't a girl just have a good time?" she asked.

"Well, sure," he said, "but you didn't say a word when I commented on the waitress' boobs, so call me crazy, but I'd say you're pretty deep in thought."

Rinoa scowled. "I should kick you for that."

"I said it to get your attention," he said. "Imagine my surprise when you didn't take the bait."

"I should make you go apologize to her."

"If you like," he said. "But I'd rather find out what's got you looking like you sucked on a lemon all through dinner."

"Wrong time, wrong place," she said. "Let's just dance, okay?"

Rinoa allowed him to lead her through a series of waltzes and a foxtrot, declined an offer to dance from one of her father's subordinates, and returned to the table. A glance at the time told her it was almost time to go, and she willed herself to have the nerve to go for it.

Irvine escorted her to the car and she slid into the back seat, feigning ignorance when the driver turned for the road out of town instead of the main street back to the Palace. Outside the window, she saw the faces of the oppressed huddled together on street corners and the soldiers standing guard over the square and the evidence of bombing south of downtown and her eyes burned with tears she wouldn't let herself cry.

It wasn't right. Someone needed to stand up and put a stop to this. Even if all she could do was fight for the side of the oppressed, then she would do it.

As the car passed out of city limits, Rinoa slipped her hand into her purse and retrieved the handgun. She slid forward and pressed the barrel to the back of the driver's head.

"Stop the car."

"Rin, what the hell are you doing?!" Irvine cried.

"What does it look like?" she asked as the driver pulled onto the shoulder. "I'm not going to Deling City."

"Now wait a second," Irvine protested but Rinoa cut him off.

"You're the one who said one girl with courage and conviction could make a difference," she said. "Well, I'm making a difference."

The car came to a stop and Rinoa ordered the driver to hand her his phone and his car keys.

"Now, get out of the car," she said calmly. "Irvine, you're driving."

"And where are we going?"

"Timber."

* * *

Notes: I'm on a bit of a writing break, so I'm only posting things that were completed before I decided to give my brain a rest. I'll be back soon, but for those asking for updates to other things, please know updates will be slow for the rest of the month. Work is really busy for me this time of year and it doesn't slow down until January.

Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed, faved and followed! XO!


	5. Chapter 5

4

* * *

"Dig faster."

Xu clenched the shovel tighter, refused to look at the soldier who addressed her, and continued to slowly dig the rectangular hole in the ground as she'd been ordered.

It was precisely the length and depth to bury a body. Xu tried in vain not to think of its purpose, but there was no way to deny what it was for. The weak did not last long around here.

"Inmate, did you hear me?"

Maybe, if they fed her more often than every other day, she might pick up the pace, but they forced her to dig for hours at gun-point, without a break or water to stave off dehydration and exhaustion. This was her sixth hole of the day and her muscles burned like fire and her vision occasionally blurred at the edges. Her skin was flushed with sunburn and her stomach tightened like a vice every time she thought of the next meal.

To hell with them and their grave-digging quota.

"I told you to dig faster," the soldier said. He seized her arm and his fingers dug into her flesh. "You deaf?"

Xu, at the end of her rope, turned to him and swung the shovel with all the strength she could muster. It collided against the side of his face with a satisfying thrum and he sank to his knees in the mud beside her.

There was a split second of perverse pleasure at seeing him go down before Xu was taken to the ground by a soldier twice her size. She smiled into the dirt as they cuffed her wrists behind her back.

They could beat her, starve her, and lock her in a filthy pen, but she would sooner die than let them break her. No matter what, she would continue to resist for as long as they allowed her to live.

In the hours that followed, there were a few times when she wished she was dead, but death was not a mercy they offered her. She didn't cry or scream or let on this was any different from the hours spent in the pen with the other prisoners. She kept her eyes open and memorized their faces and waited for it to be over. Somewhere along the way, she lost consciousness.

When she woke, dawn was on the horizon and the air smelled of shit and rain and moldy hay. Her battered, bruised body was cradled against someone kind enough to care that she couldn't care for herself. Everything hurt and it was hard to breathe.

As she blinked away the dregs of sleep, she shifted and caught the scent of something antiseptic. She tried to lift her head off the bony arm it lay against, but it weighed a ton.

"Shh. You're okay."

Selphie.

Xu attempted to sit up, but a wicked pain split across her entire right side and left her without breath and shaking.

"Don't move," Selphie murmured. "It'll only hurt more."

Xu did not remember being brought back here. She was sure they would kill her when they were done reminding her of what happened to rebels.

There was more relief in being alive than she thought. It was a miracle her heart still beat. Twice now, she witnessed women who chose to resist taken just a few feet outside the pen, put on their knees and -

Xu would not think about that. She was lucky, but not grateful they spared her.

Selphie lifted her head and peered around the camp, then retrieved a bottle of something from the bodice of her shift. She uncapped it and pressed it to Xu's lips. "Drink it, quick!"

Xu didn't ask what it was and parted her lips to receive it. Selphie tipped the contents into her mouth and Xu recognized the flavor – bitter with a hint of something sweet like nectar and thick like syrup.

A potion.

Xu swallowed it down in one gulp. Almost immediately, the pain in her ribs lessened and it took the sting out of the worst of her bruises. It didn't completely repair the damage, but it was enough to ease her labored breaths and quench the fire in her broken bones.

"Where did you get that?" Xu asked.

"They had me scrubbing bed pans and stuff at the infirmary," Selphie whispered. "I might have nicked a few things when their backs were turned."

Thank Hyne for Selphie's fearlessness. She might be small and she might not know when to shut up, but Xu was glad the girl had guts. Stealing supplies was sure to carry a similar punishment to the one Xu received, if not a bullet to the back of the skull.

"Too bad you couldn't get your hands on a grenade."

"Well..."

Xu peered up at her unlikely ally and even in the dim morning light, could see a bit of victorious mischief in her face.

"What?" Xu asked.

"Shh. They're coming back," Selphie hissed.

Xu feigned sleep as footfalls neared, boot soles against shallow puddles and gravel, and she forced herself to relax. Beside her, Selphie took slow, deep breaths that Xu felt against her scalp.

Some how, some way, they had to get out of here or die trying.

Xu wondered if there was a home in Centra waiting for her if she escaped. Up until now, the war did not have much impact on her life and she paid little attention to the news. Her struggles were of the kind where she didn't have the luxury of fretting over what politician implemented what restriction or what policy Vinzer Deling decided to enforce. It was hard enough just to survive on a waitress salary, and just like back home, there were days and weeks when she went without. The war seemed an abstract thing that was none of her concern, until it was.

Did Seifer step up after she left? Or was it Quistis who took charge? Were they okay? Had the war reached Centra?

For the first time since she left, she felt guilty for taking off. At the time, she was so fed up with the role Cid forced her into, she saw no other option but to leave or forever be responsible for a bunch of other people who resented her every effort.

As the footfalls faded, Xu wondered if Selphie remembered, or if she was too young when she left to recall where she came from. Once or twice, Xu almost reminded her, but then didn't because the girl seemed so fond of her family, it would be a tragedy to shatter that illusion for her.

Best to leave it be.

Selphie scooted down until they were face to face and withdrew something else from the bodice of her shift.

"Hyne, do you have a secret pocket in there?" Xu whispered.

Selphie grinned and put the object in Xu's hand. It was a long, cylindrical tube, roughly an inch thick with a plastic pull-tab on the bottom.

"Is this what I think it is?"

"Yep," Selphie said.

"They had a stash of flares just sitting around in the infirmary?"

"Might have fallen off the back of a truck," Selphie said.

"Has anyone ever told you, you're insane?"

"Once or twice," Selphie said. Her stomach rumbled, and she pressed a hand against it. "I hope they feed us today."

Xu's stomach clenched in response. "You and me both, kid."

* * *

Rinoa kept the handgun trained on Irvine as he steered the car down a dirt road the map said would connect them to a trade route to Timber. He played it cool, no big deal, but he was used to being on the other side of the barrel, not the one in the cross-hairs.

He doubted Rinoa would actually shoot him. He doubted she even knew how to use the weapon, but that didn't make it any less nerve-wracking.

Irvine should have anticipated her impromptu change of plan, but his talents were not of the strategic or tactical variety. He was a good shot with a rifle. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, he was a hostage and it was his own damn fault. If he was smart, he would have expected this.

"Take the next left," Rinoa said.

Irvine obeyed and eased the car onto the intersecting road.

"So," he drawled, "what's your plan, Rin? You even have one?"

"We're going to help the resistance," she said. "In any way we can."

Boy, she was naive. On an intellectual level, Irvine appreciated Rinoa's desire to help the victims of the war, but he also saw the value in laying low. She was the daughter of a wealthy man, a girl who never wanted for a thing or went to bed hungry, and she didn't know what it was really like out there. For all her noble intentions, she was unprepared for the future that awaited them, or the risk she was about to take.

He slowed and pulled onto the shoulder of the road and put the car in park.

"I didn't tell you to stop," she said.

"Look, Rin, this is a really bad idea," he said. "I respect you taking the initiative and all, but I didn't sign up for this. All I was supposed to do was take you to dinner, not become an accessory to... whatever this is."

Rinoa didn't waver.

"I know you're not going to shoot me," he said. "Put the gun down."

"No."

"Come on, you don't even know how to use that thing."

"I don't think you want to find out if that's true or not," she said.

"Well, why don't you drive for a while? I'm gettin' kinda tired."

"I don't know how to drive."

"Your old man never taught you?"

"Are you kidding? He barely taught me how to tie my shoes," she said. "You think he ever bothered with anything else?"

Irvine sighed and slid his eyes back to the windshield.

"Then what makes you think you can survive out there on your own?" he wondered. "You grew up with privileges the rest of the world didn't get, Rin. You had housekeepers to do your laundry and make your bed and clean up after you. You got regular meals and nice clothes and you don't know a lick about what goes on outside the walls of your daddy's fortress."

Rinoa stared at him, aghast.

"Sorry if that hurts your feelings, but if you think for one second the people of Timber are going to welcome you with open arms just because you climbed down from your ivory tower, you're sadly mistaken, Rin," he said as kindly as he could. "If anything, you're more valuable as a hostage, and don't think there won't be a few of them that would use you against your father."

She opened her mouth, closed it, and her nostrils flared.

"They don't need to know," she said after a beat.

"Just some food for thought," he said. "Figure, if you're going to play rebel princess, then someone needed to give you a heads-up. Like I said, it's real noble and all that you want to help, but I'm not sure this is the way to go."

"How would you do it?"

"I'd stay out of it," he said. "Keep my head down, play by the rules, and maybe throw a monkey wrench in from the inside when I could get away with it."

"So you're all talk and no action."

He reached over, seized her wrist and twisted it until she released the pistol. He snatched it with his free hand and received an armful of scratches in return as Rinoa attempted to reclaim the weapon. Pinkish-lines raised along his forearm and two of them began to bleed.

"I'm still here, ain't I?" he said, pocketed the weapon and started the car.

* * *

Zell poked his head out from under the hood of their rusted, beat-up truck and held out his hand. Fujin placed the appropriate socket in his palm and he grunted his thanks.

The damn truck was on its last legs and pissing oil from somewhere, and he wasn't too sure he could fix it this time. It had too many miles on it, and there wasn't enough money to maintain but the most basic of things, and they definitely couldn't afford to put a quart in a half in it every week, just to keep it running, even with Squall and Seifer's weekly income.

He tightened the engine cover and passed the tool back to Fujin with a disgruntled sigh.

"I guess we'll drive it until it breaks down," he said. "Can't find where the leak is."

"MAINSEAL?"

"Doesn't look like it, and there's no oil around the spark plugs," he said. "Probably a line, but I can't find it."

"JUNK."

"Just like everything else around here," he said and closed the hood. "Hey Fu? What do you think about those guys that came the other day? The Estharians."

Fujin leaned against the bumper and shrugged.

"Think it's bad that I wanna join up?" he asked. "I'm kinda, you know, thinking about it."

"GOOD."

Zell chewed his lip and perched on the bumper beside her. It was all he thought about the last day or two. How nice it would be to have regular meals and a purpose. He wasn't positive Esthar could be trusted, but there was that old saying about the enemy of your enemy being a friend. In this case, Zell was inclined to side with the guys that weren't trying to invade every continent on the planet.

Not that Zell thought much about the war until those guys showed up. He paid close attention to the news from the radio after they left, and what he heard scared him. People were dying for fighting back. They were dying because they were hungry and sick and the Galbadian government didn't care about them unless they pledged loyalty to Deling.

The Estharian's were right. How long before the war came to Centra?

If he joined their cause, maybe it wouldn't. Nobody knew much about Esthar, but Zell was pretty sure, they weren't the bad guy.

"How 'bout you?" he asked. "You thinking about it?"

"THINKING," she said with a nod.

"You leaning toward a yes or a no?"

"YES."

"Yeah," Zell agreed. "Quis wants to go, too. And Raijin. Think Seifer will join up if we all decide to go?"

Fujin turned thoughtful, cocked her head and and shook it.

"Why not?" Zell asked. "He'd do pretty good as a soldier, don't you think? He'd wanna be the boss and stuff, but I bet if he put his mind to it, he'd do all right."

"ELLONE."

Zell never quite understood what that was about. Squall, sure. Zell understood why Squall would miss her. Ellone was his sister, or his cousin on his mother's side or something, Zell wasn't sure which, but Seifer, after all this time, was still really attached. Seifer, who didn't give a damn about much, bordered on obsession when it came to Ellone, even though he never talked about it.

It was something that became a running joke in the house. Whenever Seifer disappeared for a while, even if he'd gone out with some girl, they blamed it on Ellone.

"Think she'll ever come back?" Zell wondered.

"YES."

Surprised by her answer, Zell pushed away from the bumper and looked at her.

"Really?"

"YES," she said, and pointed past the cliff to the horizon, where a ship with a rear-facing sail was moored just off the reef. "SEE?"

* * *

It was well after dark when the small rowboat came ashore. In the distance, the lights of the ship winked like stars and left the barest suggestion of its source against the night sky.

Seifer stood back near the rocks, his posture an unconscious mirror of Squall's. Both waited with their arms crossed over their chests as the others edged closer to the shoreline in anticipation of a reunion.

 _...hope Cid can help..._

He could barely make out the shapes in the boat, but he counted three figures. A man in a white uniform. Matron with her long hair flying like tangled serpents in the wind.

And Ellone.

In Seifer's limbs was an unfamiliar buzz, almost like an electrical current that hummed in his blood. In his head, pieces of her thoughts flickered in and out - an unhinged Matron with eyes the color of gold and ocher., bad dreams of a place full of horrors that could not be real, inhuman wails of pain and rage.

… _.stop what's coming..._

Seifer shivered in the wind and cast a sidelong glance at Squall. The younger boy's expression gave nothing away, but his tense posture and clenched jaw echoed Seifer's own feelings on their return.

"How long have you known?" Squall murmured. "That they were coming back?"

"I always knew," Seifer said. "Said it a thousand times, didn't I."

Squall tightened his folded arms over his chest and nodded at the sea.

"Guess you did."

Zell was the first to greet them. He barreled into the surf, his shoes still on, and lifted Ellone from the boat with a whoop of joy. He slung her around to his back to carry her to shore, freakishly strong for his size. He didn't even sway under the weight of a woman who weighed only a little less than himself.

A woman. Ellone left as a young teen, but she returned to him a grown woman.

Had she, like Seifer, sought the comfort of others to kill the longing? Did it leave her with only a temporary reprieve? Did someone love her?

There was no part of him that craved her body. It was not a physical need but a spiritual one. It was her soul he desired, her very being, and he resented how nothing he did chased her from his psyche.

Seifer remained where he was and watched while Raijin and the young man in the boat assisted Matron to the shore. Squall took a few steps forward, then stopped. Like Seifer, he was wary of this, of what it meant, and why they were here after so long.

Matron moaned as Raijin scooped her up and carried her to the sand. Seifer wondered if she was ill.

… _.getting worse...worse...Cid will fix this..._

Whatever Cid had to do with it, Seifer doubted he could fix anything. He barely acknowledged Squall's request to join them, and instead stayed behind in his room with his face to the wall.

Quistis fawned over Ellone as if she wasn't four years younger but a sixty-year-old spinster, and Seifer smirked to himself, though he wasn't surprised.

… _.please...Cid can help..._

The buzzing grew stronger the closer Ellone came, and along with it, the throb of a heartbeat that wasn't his own.

As if she sensed Seifer's reluctance, she went to Squall first, and Seifer caught a glimpse of moonlight reflected in her tears as she looked Squall over.

"Hyne, you look like your mother," she said in wonder. "You're so tall. I bet the girls just fall all over you..."

"Not really," Squall said.

They might, if not for his distant nature and his obvious, abject poverty. Even Seifer noticed before he quit, how the girls at school stared. Squall either pretended he didn't see it, or he was too wrapped up in his own head to pay attention.

Squall's throat bobbed and his lips pressed into a thin line. He said nothing else and flinched when she reached out to lay a hand to the side of his face. Ellone took a step back and turned her gaze to the sand.

Behind her, Matron shrieked at the sky and raked her nails down the side of Raijin's face. Raijin squawked and pressed his palm to his cheek, stunned by the attack.

Ellone turned away and rushed to Matron's side, drew her away with gentle hands and soft words that Seifer didn't hear over the woman's wretched sobs.

This must be the reason they were back. Not because Ellone craved him the way he craved her. Not because she missed her family.

That burned him from the inside out. To be presented with a thing he needed and could not have was like tempting a starving dog with a piece of meat, only to take it away after a solitary bite.

She did not come back for him. He wondered if she ever planned to, if not for the madwoman she brought with her.

Whatever she said calmed Matron, but the woman sunk into the sand in a heap of black fabric and folded in on herself. She rocked back and forth, murmuring in a language Seifer didn't recognize.

Ellone stood and wiped her hands over her face, then returned to Squall. She bowed her head again and clasped a sheer wrap tighter around her shoulders. Seifer fought the instinct to shield her from the wind, dug in his heels, and waited for her to acknowledge him directly.

"I'm sorry I was gone so long," Ellone said. "Please don't be angry. It wasn't my choice."

Squall's nod was barely perceptible, and he patted her arm awkwardly, then leaned in to press his lips to her forehead.

"Welcome home, Sis."

How easily he forgave her. Seifer wasn't sure he could do the same.

It wasn't her absence Seifer resented. It was her presence. Not here, not now, but the one he could never shake, that tie that bound him for as long as he could remember. It flared in his chest and demanded answers to questions he couldn't ask her now.

When she turned her eyes on him, it faded. Before him stood a slightly older version of the girl he remembered, but not much changed in the years apart. Her face was still more cute than pretty, and her frame was delicate and a bit coltish. Not much meat on her, but for as fragile as she looked, he sensed something deeper and stronger, something beyond the eye's perception that said her will was as solid as steel.

She didn't need to tell him how much he changed in that time. The last time she laid eyes on him, he was barely five feet tall and still a child. Now he towered over her, nearly a foot taller, barrel chested and strong as a ruby dragon.

… _.forgive me..._

That abandoned child went to war with what Seifer knew to be true. It was not her fault she left, but she left him behind without a fight. She bonded to him before he could spell his own name, took his free will before he could give his consent to belong.

"Why?" was the only word he could manage. " _Why_?"

Ellone didn't give an answer. Not the verbal kind, and not the kind only he could hear. She just stared.

"We should get Edea inside," she finally said and broke eye contact. "We'll talk later."

He followed at a distance, and in the darkness, he swore there was an aura around both Sorceresses. Not quite a color, more like the impression of a color, a suggestion that only Seifer could see. It trailed behind them in waves, like heat off blacktop, the shimmery mirage of water in the desert.

Blue-violet for Matron. A frosty green for Ellone.

Now, more than ever, he felt the ties that tethered him to her. For so many years, he longed for her to come back, and now everything in him rejected it.

As if she sensed his conflict, Ellone paused on the steps and turned to face him.

He ached to be by her side. He yearned to be set free.

But he wasn't sure which he wanted more.

* * *

Notes: Credit for the colored auras goes to Summoner Luna and her wonderful fic "Dissolve," and is now headcanon. Go read it, y'all. It's worth your time.

And as always, thanks for the reviews and follows!


	6. Chapter 6

5

* * *

Ellone couldn't believe how tall and beautiful they'd all grown. When she left, they were still children, their faces and bodies soft and round with baby fat. She still thought of them that way, but they weren't kids anymore. Every one of them left childhood behind some time ago, the baby fat melted away by an improper diet and hard work, their innocence replaced with a hard-edged awareness that life wasn't fair.

What happened in the time she was gone, besides the obvious onset of puberty, to make them that way? It wasn't war. Galbadia's forces had not yet reached this far.

Something else, then.

It was obvious from the shabby state of the house and the near-barren cupboards that life here at the orphanage did not improve upon Ellone's departure. The house was clean, if not little cluttered, but the ancient appliances did not fare well over time, and there was evidence of water damage in a few places. The curtains were faded and brittle to the touch, windows were boarded over, rather than replaced, and the couch looked to collapse if one more person sat upon it.

What went on after she left?

"Where's Cid?" she asked as she guided a muttering Edea to the nearest chair. "I need to talk to him."

They exchanged glances. Eyebrows raised and lips pursed, and Ellone suspected he was the reason for the poor state of the place.

"Good luck with that," Seifer said and stalked from the room.

"Seifer-" she began and stood to follow, but Zell stopped her.

"Just ignore him," he said. "He's got a bug up his butt about basically everything."

"Why?" Ellone asked. "What happened?"

"Everything," Quistis said. "And nothing." She gestured around the room. "All of this."

Squall leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded tight across his chest. A thread hung from the partially unraveled hem of his shirt. There was a hole in his sleeve. He watched with impassive eyes and with a cool silence that Ellone found chilling.

"Cid drinks a lot, ya know?" Raijin said.

"ALCOHOLIC."

Ellone looked at their faces, one by one. Gorgeous, smart Quistis in a too-big dress, probably by design to prevent unwanted attention. Zell who was still so much smaller than the rest, his hands smeared in grease. Fujin with her penetrating stare and too-long jeans with the holes in them, Raijin, big and broad in cargo pants with frayed pockets that were an inch too short.

And Squall, with his threadbare shirt and cold blue eyes, his beautiful face and closed off posture.

They were all so different, yet they all were so world-weary. They wore their poverty like a badge of honor. The were all a little feral, and a lot angry. She sensed how tough it was for them without someone there to provide or look out for them.

Cid failed them.

"How long?" she asked.

"A long time," Squall said. "It got worse after Xu left."

Ellone sat back and rubbed her eyes. She would not cry over this. All hope would be lost if she broke, and she counted on Cid to be what fixed Edea, but as it turned out, he was just as damaged. In the end, nothing good came of their attempt to save her, and worse, the kids suffered the consequences.

That was her fault. She was the one to blame, and coming back was a mistake. They should hate her, for being gone, for leaving them alone to fend for themselves with a caregiver who was too weak to suck it up and care for them like he should. If not for her, there would be no need to hide or run away or live day to day knowing nothing changed, nothing got better, only worse.

Beside her, Edea sobbed quietly into her palms. It was time to reunite the Sorceress with her Knight.

She got up and helped Edea to her feet and guided her down the hall to Cid's room. She knocked on the door, but Cid didn't answer.

"Just go in," Quistis said. "He never answers the door."

Ellone pushed the door open to reveal Cid sprawled face-down on the bed wearing only boxer shorts. On the nightstand were several empty bottles of cheap liquor, and one with less than half left.

He looked terrible. His complexion was sallow and pale and his eyes were sunken and ringed in dark purple. Judging by the bright red capillaries around his nose and the reek of stale booze in the room, drinking was more than just a hobby for Cid. It was more than just something he did to help him sleep or pass the time, it was an addiction, an escape, a hunger, and that too, was Ellone's fault.

Edea ripped away from Ellone's supportive grasp and flung herself at the sleeping Cid, and the sound of her sobs rose to a heart-shredding crescendo that Ellone could no longer take. She backed out of the room, on the verge of tears herself, and closed the door.

Let them sort it out. If they could each be the thing that healed the other, then returning was not a mistake.

* * *

"RABBITS," Fujin said and dumped a skinned pair on the counter. "CELEBRATE."

Zell doubted any one else was in the mood to celebrate. He wasn't, but only because the overall mood in the house was tense and weird. Ellone and Edea's return should be something everyone was happy about, but Seifer disappeared to the lighthouse to sulk, Squall was extra quiet, and Quistis sat by the window and thumbed through the brochure the Estharians left for her to look over. Even Ellone was somber and unsmiling. Only Raijin was unaffected by it, but then, Raijin found the silver lining in almost anything.

"I think there's still some potatoes in the pantry," Raijin said. "Maybe some carrots. Be good for a stew, ya know?"

Stew was best for rabbit, otherwise the meat was tough and gamy. Not that Zell could or would complain about the quality of whatever source of protein they could get their hands on. Rabbit was much better than baloney, but not as good as the fatty trimmings or the unsellable but still edible cuts of meat Seifer brought home from the butcher, but he could work with it.

Dinner was nearly ready when Seifer returned. Zell didn't expect to see him until morning, as it often went when Seifer was bent about something. In his hand was a bottle of spirits and it was plain to see, he was well on his way to drunk.

"You're all going to Esthar," he announced and stabbed his finger at the air. "I'm not going to argue with you about it. You're going to pack your shit tonight, and in the morning, you're going to meet up with those Estharian guys, get on a boat, and never come back."

No one said a word. Every face but Squall's registered surprise.

"I know y'all want to go," he said. "I think it's a stupid idea, but shit's gotta change, and staying here ain't gonna do anybody any good."

"Do you plan to join us?" Quistis asked.

"Fuck no," he said and took a swallow from the bottle. He turned his gaze to Ellone. "I've got other obligations."

"Don't stay on my account," she said. "If you want to go, then go."

"That's the thing," he slurred. "I can't, can I? You get the freedom to come and go as you please, you get choices and free will and I fucking get no say in the matter because _you_ won't _let_ me."

Zell didn't understand what that meant, but he wasn't so blind he couldn't see there was something more complex going on than drunk Seifer running his mouth about nonsense.

"Don't talk to her that way," Squall said.

"I'll talk to her any goddamned way I want. It's her fault after all," Seifer said, and Ellone winced. "Now go pack your shit."

Squall surged forward and shoved Seifer, hard. Seifer stumbled back, his balance and reaction compromised by drink, but he bounced back and took a wild swing.

His fist, still wrapped around the neck of the bottle, collided with Squall's forehead. The bottle broke in Seifer's hand and left a streak of red between Squall's eyes. Seifer had cut him wide open.

"Stop this," Ellone ordered. "Right now."

Seifer froze in his tracks, but Squall lifted his head, seized Zell's paring knife from the counter and slashed back. Blood poured from the wound the blade inflicted, but he didn't move, as if Ellone's demand rendered him powerless to return fire. More blood dripped from Seifer's hand to the dirty floor and made a ink-dark puddle that would be indistinguishable from the other stains on the wood once it dried.

"I said stop!" Ellone shouted and moved to place herself between the two. "I don't want you to fight!"

"You don't get to order me to do anything, Sis," Squall said. His eyes blazed and blood dripped from his chin. "You've got your lapdog for that."

"Stop," she said. "Please."

Something seriously weird was going on here. Whatever there was among the three, Zell got a bad feeling there was more to it than just a little jealousy.

"I'm not her fucking lapdog," Seifer said under his breath. "I didn't want this."

Squall's laughter was devoid of humor. He took a step back and wiped the blood from his brow. His hand came away red and he stared at his fingers with dull interest.

"Fuck you, Seifer," Squall said, turned on his heel and stormed from the room.

When no one moved or spoke, Zell followed Squall to their shared bedroom. A battered suitcase lay open on Squall's bed and he tossed handfuls of his meager belongings into it. Blood still ran down his face and dripped down the front of his shirt, onto the bedding, the floor, and his shoes.

"What are you doing?" Zell asked as he seated himself on his own bed.

"What's it look like?"

Zell didn't know what to say so he waited. If Squall wanted to talk, he would. If not, not even a crowbar and a hammer could pry it out of him.

Squall didn't have much worth packing. None of them did – everything they owned was someone else's trash. Most of what went into the suitcase was stained or full of holes or both. Zell thought it was best to take what was necessary and replace anything that wasn't.

When Squall didn't speak, Zell got up from the bed, gently pushed him aside and handed him the most worthless of the t-shirts in the pile.

"You need to put pressure on that cut," he said. "Let me do this."

Squall stared. The parts of his face that weren't covered in blood blazed pink and his eyes still burned hot with an intensity Zell seldom saw in his taciturn brother.

"So what was that about?" Zell asked as he sorted through a wad of t-shirts.

"I don't know," Squall said. "Long time coming, though."

"What did he do to piss you off that much?"

Squall stared at the door that led back to the kitchen.

"...belong."

* * *

The Timber skyline was a ragged series of half-ruined buildings against the orange sky of dawn. There were no lights and no signs that the occupied city lived. Either this side was too decimated to sustain a population or the Galbadians imposed a curfew with rolling blackouts to conserve energy. It was probably a little of both. The citizens that weren't willing to comply were long gone. Those that were too afraid to resist stayed behind and were subject to Deling's cruel and ridiculous martial law.

Rinoa's heart ached to think of the victims of Galbadia's siege and what their lives must be like. Dollet was bad, but this boggled the mind. They bombed buildings with people still in them – suspected insurgents and rebels and those that plotted the fall of an empire. Even civilians that were just trying to get through it – women, children, elderly, ill, disabled. They were merely collateral damage, acceptable losses, useless sheep.

They were far enough away from the city limits that they were in no danger of being spotted by patrol. Any closer, and the risk tripled. What Rinoa sought wouldn't be found here, anyway. She just needed to see it for herself before they continued their journey to the refugee camps.

In the driver's seat, Irvine was fast asleep, his hat perched over his face. He snored softly and twitched from time to time, like he flinched from some dream-horror or shotgun blast he didn't expect.

Reluctant though he was to be part of this, he was the reason she summoned the courage to do this. Though he leaned toward cowardice, and talked of things he wasn't willing to do himself, he could be brought around. Though she put a gun to his head and made him drive, Rinoa didn't believe he would go along with this if he truly didn't want to. There were a thousand ways he could have brought her to heel, but he didn't.

A coward he wasn't. A coward would have disarmed her before they reached the border, would have turned the car around and taken her straight back to her father.

He didn't believe himself a rebel yet, but he would. In time. Once he saw what they were fighting for up close and personal.

She took advantage of his slumber and rooted through the bag she found in the trunk containing a change of clothes and a handful of toiletries her father packed for her trip back to Deling City. There wasn't anything practical inside. No pants or t-shirts, just her favorite mini-skirt, a long blue duster without sleeves, and a tank top, along with underwear, a bra, a pair of pajamas, and her beloved combat boots.

It wasn't ideal, but it would do. She couldn't very well be driving around occupied territory dressed like she was going to a ball.

They would have to find Irvine some more appropriate attire, too. The suit and tie wouldn't go over so well, even if the cowboy hat lessened the effect.

She wished there was something to eat in that bag. She regretted not eating her dinner the night before, but supposed she would have to get used to hunger.

Outside, the morning was cool and the breeze chilly, but she stripped and pulled on the outfit her father picked out.

Hyne, he was still making decisions for her, wasn't he? Even now, she had no choice but to wear what he wanted her to wear. The only real vestige of herself was in the boots, and she tugged them on, laced them tight and gazed at the scuffs and scrapes on the toes.

If that was true, why pack them?

That was a question Rinoa didn't know how to answer.

Back in the car, Irvine snorted himself awake when she closed the door harder than intended. He smacked his lips and lifted the hat away from his face to blink at her with unfocused eyes. The pistol was trained on her torso.

"You're going to shoot me?" she asked.

Irvine grunted and pocketed the weapon.

"Trained response," he said thickly. "Soldier's always prepared."

"I'll remember that," she said. "Are you ready to drive, or do you need more sleep?"

"I could use some coffee is what I'm thinkin'," he said. "Some bacon and eggs."

Rinoa's stomach clenched and her mouth watered at the thought, but she didn't say anything because she didn't want Irvine's lecture on all the reasons this was a bad idea.

"If you can drive, then drive," she said.

He started the car and settled his hat back on his head, suppressed a yawn, and eased the car back onto the road.

From there, they turned west and headed for the coast in silence. When Rinoa couldn't stand the quiet anymore, she turned on the radio. The only station she found was Galbadian Network News.

" _G-Army forces were deployed to Centra last night to stem the tide of dissenters gathering on Centran shores. President Vinzer Deling has declared the continent, which has no official government, an annex of the Galbadian continent and subject to Galbadian rule. Dissenters and rebels will be subject to the same No Tolerance policy set forth by the President."_

Rinoa frowned at the radio and shook her head. Deling was not content to conquer just one continent, just as Irvine said. He wanted them all.

" _In other news, Balamb continues to resist occupation. As G-Army forces prepare a second assault, it is believed that the small country was decimated in the last wave of attacks and will surely fall by the end of the week."_

"Why Balamb?" she wondered. "They have nothing Deling wants or needs. They just want to be left alone."

"Why does a rich man continue to make money where he can, even when he has more than he can spend in a lifetime?"

The answer was greed, but Rinoa wondered if there was more to it than that. Why was enough never enough for some people? Why were the greedy never satisfied?

Rinoa switched off the radio, preferring the silence to Galbadian propaganda. She hadn't slept, but she didn't think she would until they reached their destination. For the next three hours, she watched the landscape pass through stinging eyes. Irvine offered no conversation to pass the time, and Rinoa was too weary to start one.

She drifted off, and was startled awake a short time later when the car came to a stop. She sat up and peered through the windshield to find a sea of makeshift dwellings set on a hill above the ocean.

They'd arrived.

"So..." Irvine drawled. "We walk from here."

They got out of the car and Rinoa retrieved her bag from the back seat.

"Then let's go," she said.

The camp was not as close as it appeared, and the day was warm under a cloudless sky. Halfway there, Rinoa stopped beside a small stream and splashed cold water on her face. Irvine stood above her, his skepticism shining through a half-hearted attempt at passivity.

"Don't say it," she warned. "I know what you're thinking, but I'm not going to wilt."

"If you say so."

"Anyway, we need to do something about what you're wearing," she said.

"Let me go check my bag for something more appropriate," he said. "Oh, my bad. Your pops didn't pack one for me."

Rinoa rolled her eyes, scooped up a handful of mud and flung it at him. It spattered his wrinkled but still pristine dress shirt and he gaped at her in shock.

"Are you _crazy_ , woman?"

"No, you're just too clean," she said. "If that's all you have to wear, you might as well make it look like you've been wearing it a while."

He bent down, scooped up some mud of his own.

"Then I suppose you won't mind," he said with an easy grin, then mashed it into her hair and scalp. "How do you like that?"

Aghast, Rinoa mused a handful of mud into his face and ground it in. He coughed, sputtered, then lunged forward and smeared as much as he could against the side of her face and neck. Rinoa shrieked and pulled away, but he caught her arm, gave her a tight bear hug and ground his body against hers.

"Ugh! You pervert!" She pushed him away and kicked water in his direction. "In your dreams!"

"There was absolutely nothing sexual about that, my friend," he said. "Just sharing the wealth."

"I doubt that," she said.

"Soldier's honor."

"I also doubt _that_."

"Satisfied?" he asked. "Am I filthy enough for your liking, or should I lay down and roll around in it for a while?"

She looked him over and pointed to the dirt. "Roll."

Instead, he took off the shirt, rubbed it in the grass and dirt while Rinoa rinsed the clumps of mud from her hair in the creek. It was still gritty and felt like she'd washed it with motor oil, but it was better than nothing. With any luck, it would dry stringy enough to convince the rebels they'd traveled some distance without the opportunity to bathe.

Irvine held the shirt up for her inspection. She found it acceptably filthy.

"Your pants are still clean."

"They're going to have to stay that way," he said. "We ought to get a move on."

Rinoa agreed, but not before she made Irvine roll up his sleeves and cut a hole in the knee of his pants. He still looked like he'd come from money, even if he hadn't, but they could always lie and say he stole the clothes from a diplomat's suitcase at the train station.

They were greeted with a less than friendly welcome on the outskirts of the camp by a pair of men with hard, wary eyes and large guns.

"State your business."

"We're here to help," Rinoa said. "We have nowhere else to go."

"Camp's full."

"Please," she said. "We can help. Let us talk to someone in charge."

Irvine elbowed her in the side. She cast a glare his way, but he did it again.

"Please forgive my lady friend," he said. "She's tired and hungry and could sure use a drink of water, if you please. We don't want no trouble. We ain't the bad guys."

They exchanged glances. One nodded to the other and tilted this head toward the camp.

"Wait here."

They didn't have to wait long. A young man about Rinoa's age approached, a rifle slung across his back. A belt around his waist contained ammo, a hunting knife, and a radio.

"That's a nice weapon," Irvine said. "I hunt with one of those."

"A hunter, huh?" the young man said. "What do you hunt?"

"Anything edible," Irvine said. "I prefer large game, though. More of a challenge."

"Hmm. I'm Zone," he said and clutched his midsection as if in pain. "And you are?"

"Name's Irvine. This here is Rin. Feed us and give us a place to rest and we'll help out in any way we can."

Rinoa was annoyed that Irvine decided to speak for her, but she couldn't deny his approach was disarming. She nodded her agreement as Zone turned to her and examined her with keen interest. She hoped he wouldn't be one of those guys that only saw a pretty girl and nothing else. That was the last thing she wanted or needed.

"Could definitely use another hunter," Zone said. "Got a lot of people to feed. What about you?"

Rinoa's skill set was less accomplished, but at the very least, she could help with the kids. And it wasn't as if she was too dumb to learn.

"Whatever you need," she said.

"Ever dress a wound?"

"No, unless you count sticking a adhesive bandage on it," she said.

"Shoot a gun?"

The answer was also no.

"Can you cook?"

Rinoa shook her head. Zone looked at her doubtfully, as if to ask what she _could_ do. It was that look that made Rinoa realize how woefully unprepared for this she was. Nothing Irvine said hit home until now.

"Well, you're not the only one," he said. "Welcome to the resistance."

* * *

Seifer's head ached.

In the wake of his altercation with Squall, Seifer was left confused, angry, and annoyed, but none of that was Squall's fault. At best, his little brother was a convenient target, and alcohol never did anyone in this house any favors.

Squall, on the other hand, was furious with him, and Seifer suspected he knew the reason why. That reason sat before him to tend to his wound without magic. Old fashioned potion was apparently good enough for the guy she took as a Knight without consent.

No matter how many questions he had, Seifer couldn't open his mouth and ask them here, in front of the rest. They didn't know the truth about her, or about his connection to her. If he had his way they never would, but it wasn't a secret they could keep for long. Squall knew. Edea and Cid knew, and while neither were in their right minds, it was bound to slip.

It was better that they join Esthar. He didn't want to see them leave or go off to war, but what choice was there? Better than sticking around here waiting to be killed or sent to a work camp.

"Was that really necessary?" Ellone asked.

"He started it."

"So you decided to finish it?"

"I didn't strike the last blow, did I?" he asked. "You told me to stop. I stopped."

"I'm sorry."

There was an entire planet of regret in those two words. She was sorry for more than just ordering him to stand still while Squall carved his face open. It was more than that.

"Eh, if you hadn't, I would have done worse," Seifer said.

"I hope not."

"Probably."

Ellone mopped up the blood from his face like he was still a child and incapable of doing it himself. He didn't mind so much. He was too drunk to do a good job of it himself, and too weary of his life as it was to care.

At the stove, Fujin stirred whatever was in the pot and cast concerned glances over her shoulder. Beside her, Quistis rinsed the rag she used to clean their blood from the floor. Raijin looked at Seifer expectantly.

"Did you mean it? About us goin' to Esthar?"

"I meant it."

"But you gotta come with, ya know? Wouldn't be the same without you."

There was a part of Seifer that wanted to, but like he told Squall, his place was here. Perhaps Ellone could come and go as she pleased, perhaps she could leave him behind, but from now on, wherever she went, he was obligated to go. If he didn't have a choice in whether or not they were bonded, she would not have the choice of leaving him behind again.

"I'll stay."

"Seifer -" Ellone cut in.

"I'll stay, goddamn it."

The front door slammed shut and he exchanged a glance with Fujin as Zell returned to the kitchen.

"So Squall's gone," he said. "Packed his stuff, just like you asked."

"What?" Quistis asked. "He took off?"

"Yeah," Zell said. "He's pretty pissed."

"He'll get over it," Seifer said. "That stew about done?"

"AFFIRMATIVE."

"Good. You guys eat. I'm going to bed," he said.

It wasn't to his bed that Seifer went, but to the lighthouse to finish the bottle. He wasn't so unlike Cid when it came down to it. Except, Cid drank because his Sorceress was gone, and Seifer drank because his came back.

The wind blew something fierce up top and he watched the lights in the house go out one by one until all was dark.

After all these years of waiting, Seifer was not prepared for this, or for how conflicted he was over it. He did not want to be owned, but owned he was, subject to her every whim and powerless under her command.

He slept sitting up and woke to a gray dawn and Ellone's silhouette against the stormy sky. His head pounded and his eyes were full of grit, but still he asked:

"Why? Why me and not Squall?"

Ellone didn't answer right away. She scanned the horizon and the clouds and then sagged against the railing, vigilant for any sign of the enemy.

"You were too little to remember that day," she said without turning to face him. "She showed up on the beach, all bloody, dying..." she pushed her hand through her hair and turned her gaze to the beach. "It happened fast. Up to that point, I thought I was safe, but it taught me, there's no such thing. Especially not when your Knight is a four year old you didn't choose yourself and the people looking out for you are almost as clueless as you are."

Seifer wiped his tired eyes and sat up.

"The hell you didn't," Seifer said. "If you didn't pick me -"

"There was a man who came with her," she interrupted as if he hadn't spoken. "Tall, blonde hair, a scar between his eyes like the one Squall gave you last night. He carried a gunblade and spoke to Cid. I didn't hear what he said, but I watched him disappear. Not like a monster does when you kill it, but like he turned into vapor. And there you were, inside my head, like you were part of the deal, like you were already part of her and I had no choice but to accept you."

She turned all the way around and bowed her head.

"I've often wondered if that man on the beach was you," she said. "Some future you, maybe, who came back in time to warn of something awful to come. I was never sure, but looking at you now... I'm positive. I don't know how or why, but you were bonded to her. She gave me these powers, but also you."

"That sounds like a bunch of bullshit," Seifer said.

"Maybe so," she said. "Doesn't make it untrue."

Seifer reached for the bottle of spirits to kill his hangover and found it empty. He tossed it aside and squinted at her.

"Let me go," he said. "I never wanted this."

"I've tried," she said. "A hundred times since you were a boy."

"I never even got a fucking choice!" he shouted. "And I never would have chosen this for myself!"

"And you think I did?" she asked. "You think I pushed Quistis and Xu and Selphie aside so I could be first in line for the exact thing my family tried to keep me from?!"

Her voice was too loud, each raised syllable like a bass drum beat against the inside of his skull.

"I don't know," he said. "Stop yelling."

Ellone pushed away from the railing and joined him on the floor.

"They're packing up to leave," she said. "Just like you asked."

"Good."

"I don't want to think about them going off to war. I remember the last one."

"They'll die if they stay here," he said. "At least they'll get fed regularly."

Ellone lapsed into silence and tightened her wrap around her shoulders. She placed one hand against the back of his and the cold flow of magic poured into him to ease his headache and the worst of his hangover. He was grateful she did it without question.

"Squall came back to say goodbye earlier," she said. "I think he was disappointed you weren't there."

"He knew where to find me if he really wanted to."

"Maybe he tried and you were too far gone."

That was a probability. Seifer slept like the dead under the influence.

"Don't you have ties to Esthar?" he asked. "I don't particularly want to be some army grunt, but I'll go if you go."

"I don't know," she said. "The person I knew could very well be dead. I haven't heard from him since I was little. Anyway, I should stay with Edea. I wouldn't feel right leaving the two of them here in the state they're in."

"Fuck 'em," Seifer muttered. "Cid hasn't given a damn for years. Why should I?"

"Because they need us, no matter what."

"They don't get to make decisions for us anymore, Elle."

"Us? Does that mean you forgive me?"

That was never even a question. Like it or not, Seifer was her Knight, and in spite of his anger and resentment, he hadn't felt this whole since he was a child.

"Do I have a choice?"

"You have a right to be angry," she said. "I don't know what's coming, or why, but I think we're going to need each other sometime very, very soon."

Seifer nodded at the sea.

"I think you're right."


	7. Chapter 7

Notes:

I want to apologize for my previous rant. I think it may have come across as ungrateful to those that do show up to read and never fail to leave a review, and I want you to know, you guys are the reason I decided to continue writing. My previous notes were directed at the toll in response to things they stated in their "review," not at anyone else.

It's easy to say "ignore it," but when the voice shouting negative things at you is loud and persistent and hits on every one of your insecurities, it has a way of silencing all the others

It's also really easy to say we should "write for ourselves." On some level, most of us do, but if we truly just wanted to write for ourselves, we wouldn't share our work with you. We could keep it to ourselves or share it privately with a handful of individuals who we know will appreciate it instead.

I debated long and hard about whether or not it was worth coming back. A big part of me didn't want to because there's this voice in my head telling me I'm just dicking around with fanfic when I should be working on other things. And really, I should be, but the truth is, I love writing fanfic, and I've met some amazing people here.

So, this update is for those that pm'ed and helped remind me why it isn't a waste of time. To Summoner Luna, SilentStarlightSky, Matrixaliesie, chundercat and Scribbleness, _thank you_. The words of one troll are nothing in comparison to how awesome you guys are.

* * *

6

* * *

Selphie shivered as sleet pelted her rain-soaked skin. It smelled like snow was on the way. She huddled against a sleeping Xu and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. The cold never bothered Selphie in Trabia, but she had the luxury of warm coats and base layers and fur-lined boots to keep her feet toasty and dry.

Here, there was no shelter. No protective clothing. Just the endless rain, the mud, the cold, and the dwindling number of prisoners they shared quarters with inside the pen.

Some of them died of illness. Some were shot when they became too exhausted to work. Some were beaten to death for disobedience.

Xu wasn't in great shape. She never completely recovered from the beating she received, even with aid from Selphie's stash of pilfered potions, and if they didn't get out soon, she might be the next to go.

So, Selphie watched and waited and looked for opportunities she could exploit. She learned the guards' habits and patterns and knew which ones were more lax and which ones were hard-asses. In the meantime, she stole things when she could get away with it, and either stashed them in her bra or buried them inside the pen for use later.

One thing she picked up while working in the infirmary was that these G-Army soldiers were not well trained, most not very bright, and they were treated almost as bad as the prisoners. She helped patch up more than one soldier that got beat up by his superior for minor infractions.

Why were they loyal? Why fight for Galbadia if this was how they treated the people who aided their cause?

She supposed it was fear that kept them there. The prisoners weren't the only ones who witnessed what happened to dissidents. Maybe, the instinct for self-preservation was stronger in some than the instinct to fight back. It was easier to keep your head down and deal with it than risk imprisonment and death. As her mother liked to say, some people were sheep and some were the wolves.

Selphie fancied herself a chocobo. No one ruled them. Even the tame, well-trained, prize-winning show birds refused to put up with abuse. A chocobo trainer that used force was usually met an equal or greater amount of aggression and a cracked skull.

Tonight was the night. They would escape tonight, just before the shift change. The guards would be tired, it was cold, and the rain-sleet mix reduced visibility to less than ten feet. Conditions were perfect.

She checked the time on the nearby tower and roused the Xu from her slumber. Xu groaned and pushed Selphie's hands away, but Selphie persisted. She couldn't escape and carry a sleeping woman at the same time.

Xu sat up from her slump and blinked at Selphie with sleep-clouded eyes.

"I want you to go over there, next to the gate. Stay low and be quiet."

"Why?"

"Because in five minutes, I'm going to scream," Selphie whispered. "When the guards open the gate to check, I want you to make a break for it, go to the left, and hide behind that stack of crates over there. Got it?"

"What are you going to do?" Xu asked. "How do you know they won't just shoot you instead?"

"They might," Selphie said. "Still, better than the alternative, right?"

"I guess," Xu said.

"If someone comes looking for you, run. If I go down, run, okay?"

"What about you?"

"I'll be fine. I've got a plan," Selphie said. "And, I might be small, but I can kick some serious butt when I want to."

Three minutes to go-time.

Xu wiped a clump of wet hair from her cheek and looked Selphie over.

"I've met some nutty people in my time," she said, "but you are hands-down, the craziest of them all."

Selphie grinned.

"I'm sure you mean that as a compliment. You know, since I'm about to save your bacon and all."

Xu smiled back and took Selphie's hand. She held on for a second, squeezed it, and then let go.

"I'll meet you outside the fence," Xu said. "You better show up or I'll come looking for you."

Two minutes.

"Ready?" Selphie asked. Xu nodded. "Go. I'll see you in a bit."

Selphie rose into a crouch while Xu crab-waked toward the gate at a snail's pace.

One minute.

The flare was tucked between her back and the clasp of her bra, and lay along her spine. It was a talisman. It kept her focused and motivated, and it was time to put it to good use. She retrieved it, opened up the plastic case that protected it from the elements and waited for Xu to reach the fence.

 _Now._

Selphie sucked in a deep breath of air, opened her mouth and shrieked at the top of her lungs. Shouts responded from beyond the fence.

Time to employ the Selphie Shuffle, a tactic she used on her brothers and never failed to work.

She pulled the tab on the flare. Red and white balls of light sliced through the night with a _pop-pop-pop_ like fireworks, and she tossed it to the right side of the pen. The guards would go to the right, while she and Xu went left.

The floodlight came on and a spotlight fell on the flare. Selphie darted to the left, and beckoned to the cowering women in the center of the pen. They stayed put.

"Come on," she hissed. "Now's our chance."

The sheep remained where they were.

Selphie felt sorry for them. Sorry that her escape would result in harsher restrictions for them, but this was their chance to run, and they didn't take it.

Xu ducked around the edge of the gate, silent as a shadow as several soldiers poured into the enclosure.

Shots rang out and Selphie dropped to her stomach to avoid being hit. She suppressed a laugh when she realized the soldiers were firing at the flare and not her.

Boy, these guys were _stupid_.

She belly crawled through the mud toward the still-open gate, her freedom so close she could taste it. Flakes of snow fell all around her.

It was a sign. A gift from the faeries.

Then, the floodlight bathed her in intense, blinding white and the gate beyond vanished into the darkness beyond the edges of the spotlight. She couldn't _see_. She wasn't sure how far the gate was, but Selphie was not going to die here. She shot to her feet and sprinted in the general direction of freedom and tried not to scream each time a shot rang out.

A lick of fire split across the outside of her right calf, and a second blazed through her shoulder, but Selphie kept running. She ran until she found a quiet, dark place behind a tarp-covered transport vehicle to catch her breath, away from the shouting guards.

There was no perimeter fence, only a collection of vehicles and tents and supplies. If she could get past all that without being spotted, she was home-free. She could go back to Trabia, back to her parents.

If they were still there. If not, she would find out where they went, and maybe they could rescue her brothers, too.

A hand clamped over Selphie's mouth and she bit back a scream as she was dragged backward.

"Shh. It's me," Xu breathed against her ear. "Stay quiet."

Boots splashed through mud nearby and Selphie didn't dare breathe. Her heart raced and her throat burned, and the wound in her shoulder went from numb to three-alarm-fire. It was all she could do to not whimper.

When the soldiers passed, Xu let her go and took her hand to lead her deeper into the darkness. The pain in her calf hampered her retreat, but Selphie was not going to let it stop her.

They stopped again behind munitions crates labeled "Rations." Selphie's stomach rumbled at the thought of food. Maybe they could swipe something for the road...

A loud click came from their left, where a lone soldier with a scary-looking gun stood in the way of their freedom. He was young, sleepy, and out of uniform.

"Hi," Xu said and flashed a brilliant smile. "You're kinda cute."

He blinked, then smiled a boyish, crooked, gee-whiz kind of smile. From the look of him, Selphie would bet no one ever told him he was cute. He wasn't ugly, just very, very average, with a face no one would ever notice in a crowd.

Xu shot to her feet and smashed her elbow into the soldier's jaw. He went down with a sploosh, and Selphie surged forward and pried the weapon from his hands. Xu went for his pockets.

A survival knife. A potion. A deck of cards. Xu took them all.

"We're really sorry about this," Selphie said and aimed the gun at his chest. He stared back, wide eyed and lifted his hands in the air. "But you're our hostage now."

"Selphie!" Xu hissed.

"It's fine," Selphie said. "Anyway, we can use him as a human shield if they start shooting at us again."

"Uhh, please... don't do that," the soldier said. "I don't want to die."

"Well, duh! Neither do _we_ ," Selphie said. "Xu? Secure the prisoner."

Xu stared.

"I always wanted to say that," Selphie admitted. "And you know? I kinda wanna blow some stuff up before we leave. To let 'em know they messed with the wrong prisoners."

"Selphie, no," Xu sighed. "Let's just go."

"But it would be fun," Selphie whined. She waved the barrel of the gun at the hostage. "You wanna live? Help us get out of here."

"My name's Nida," the soldier offered.

"I see what you're doing," Selphie said. "You tell us your name so it's harder to see you as a hostage, and therefore it'll be harder to shoot you!" To Xu, she said, "I read that in a book about what to do if you're kidnapped."

"Selphie-" Xu hissed. "They're coming back."

Footsteps splashed through mud. Voices came closer. Somewhere in the distance, a woman sobbed.

"I know a way out, okay?" Nida said. "I'll help you, just don't kill me."

* * *

Seifer didn't have much experience with goodbyes. When people left, they went quietly and without a word of parting. Now, when faced with the opportunity to say something meaningful, Seifer was at a loss.

His siblings piled out of the pick-up truck, some from the cab and others from the bed, and gathered near the tailgate. Each carried the sum-total of their lives in worn canvas duffles or in shopping bags, which amounted to a collection of holey socks, worn and stained hand-me-downs and maybe a small reminder of what they would leave behind.

He'd seen Fujin slip a handful of shells from the beach into her bag, and Quistis, that book she'd already read a hundred times already, Zell a collection of yellowed Combat King magazines, and Raijin a hand-written journal of the bugs he encountered in his day to day travels and a dirty, stuffed rabbit that was missing an ear, an eye and most of its stuffing.

What would Seifer take, if he was the one leaving?

Nothing. There wasn't a single item of sentimental value to him inside that house. Or, maybe it was the house itself he couldn't bear to leave behind. He hated the place, but it was as much a part of him as the heart beating inside his chest.

If he was smart, he would join them, but no matter how far he ran, there was no refuge from the obligations waiting for him back at the house.

"CAT," Fujin said. "FEED."

"It's a cat, Fu," Seifer said. "It can feed itself."

"FEED," she insisted.

"Fine, I'll feed your damn cat," he said and held open his arms. "Come give me a hug."

Small though she was, Fujin's hug _hurt_. And not just in a physical way.

"Stay out of trouble," he said.

Behind her, the rest watched with varying degrees of sorrow, but the overall vibe was one of excitement. They were going somewhere, away from here, about to face an unknown, but better future.

All but Squall. He stared off into the distance, his back against the passenger side fender, arms crossed over his chest, and hadn't uttered a single word since their altercation last night. The cut on his forehead was scabbed over and the skin around it blazed pink where it wasn't bruised. If he'd asked, Ellone would have healed it for him, but the stubborn little idiot wanted to be hard-headed about it, and now he would wear the scar for life.

So be it.

One by one, Seifer said his goodbyes. Each one drove home the reality of their parting. Quistis vibrated with excitement, Zell couldn't keep still, Raijin wept big, fat tears and hugged so hard, he lifted Seifer off the ground.

Only Squall remained. Seifer was torn between letting their goodbye go unsaid and forcing one. Squall leaned against the truck and refused to look at him.

"You really gonna just stand there?" Seifer demanded.

The gaze Squall turned on Seifer was cool and impassive and it reminded him of the way Fujin's stupid cat eyed a hapless sparrow just before it moved in for the kill.

Squall never looked at him like that. Bullies, the guys that persisted in hitting on Quistis, unannounced visitors that sought to convert them all to Hyne's church, sure. A thousand times, Seifer witnessed that frosty stare, but never was it directed at him.

"You're not going to say goodbye?"

Squall eased away from the fender, his arms still crossed. The others drifted away, out of earshot.

"C'mon," Seifer said. "Don't leave it like this."

"Take care of her," Squall said.

"You say that like I have a choice," Seifer said.

Squall's hand shot out and seized Seifer's collar.

"Promise me."

Seifer stared at his younger brother, at the intensity in his glare. He wrapped his hand around Squall's wrist and squeezed until Squall released him.

"Like I said, I don't have a choice," he said. "Now, you gonna say goodbye or do I have to beat it out of you?"

Squall capitulated and offered his hand.

"Aww, fuck your handshake," Seifer said. "Hug me."

Squall didn't move.

"I'm your brother. Hug me, goddamn it," he said. "We might not get another chance to do this, so don't fuck it up by being a stubborn little prick."

The corner of Squall's mouth twitched. The ice in his stare melted.

Then, he laughed. Not loud, but it was a laugh, and that was good enough. Seifer opened his arms and gathered Squall to him with a rough pat on the back and mussed his hair.

Better. Much better.

"I'm leaving you in charge," Seifer said in his ear. "You better look out for them, or else."

"I will," Squall promised.

Seifer patted his back one last time, broke away and turned to the rest.

"Alright, get the hell out of here," he said. "Don't come back. You hear me?"

"What about when the war's over, ya know?" Raijin asked.

"Maybe then," Seifer conceded. "But I don't want to see any of your faces until then, got it?"

They turned as a group toward the hotel, where the would meet the representatives from Esthar. Squall hesitated. He took two steps backward, his gaze locked on Seifer, and then turned for the door without a look back.

Seifer wasn't much on prayer. He wasn't so sure there existed some higher power that looked out for the souls that wandered this planet, but he offered up a silent plea to whatever deity might be listening to take care of his family.

They were just kids. Going off to fight and die in someone else's war.

They would need whatever help they could get.

* * *

Outside of books and movies, Squall had never seen an airship before. The craft before him was larger than a sailing ship and painted a deep wine-red and shaped like a mythical beast from some far away sea.

It was named Armageddon.

To Squall, it was an ominous moniker and a ball of dread formed in his stomach as he followed his family and twelve other youths up the gangplank. The were all too excited to notice his hesitation.

It wasn't too late to leave. Not yet. But if Seifer's behavior last night was any indication, he would not be welcomed back.

Then again, what could Seifer do if he stayed?

Behind him, the hatch closed with a metallic clank and a hiss of machinery.

"...man, what I wouldn't give to get a peek at the engines in this thing," Zell said to no one in particular.

Squall filed along with the others to a space full of seats that all faced a picture window that offered a 180-degree view of the plain and sea beyond the town. He chose a seat away from the others, near the wall and belted himself in as instructed.

He thought about what Ellone said to him, just before he left.

"If you hear of a man named Laguna Loire, find out where he is if you get the chance," she said. "Find him and tell him what we feared has come to pass."

Squall didn't understand what that meant. Not entirely.

"Who is he?"

"Someone very important to me," she said. "He needs to know I'm alive, and everything he tried to prevent happened anyway. And if it all goes wrong, tell him I'm sorry."

"Important to you?"

"Yes," she said. "He was important to your mother, too."

They never talked about his mother. Not when he was a child and not since her return. He knew almost nothing about her, except that she died the day he was born, and that her name was Raine.

"Why?"

Ellone laid a hand against his cheek.

"He's your father," she said.

"My father."

If he knew nothing of his mother, his father was a faceless, nameless entity that no one, not even Edea ever mentioned.

"I don't know if he's even alive or still in Esthar," she said. "But it's worth a shot, right?"

As the engines of the Armageddon rumbled to life, Squall considered whether it was or not. He assumed all along that his father was dead. Why else would he be out of the picture? Why would a living father leave his son to be raised in an orphanage?

Squall didn't know him, but he already hated Laguna Loire for abandoning him.

His stomach lurched as the Armageddon lifted off the ground and hovered. Zell and some of the others whooped in excitement, but all Squall felt was dread.


	8. Chapter 8

Notes:

A few readers said they did not get the chapter alert for the last update. FFN glitched twice when I tried to post it and I did not get a confirmation e-mail like I normally do.

So, if you do _not_ know what Selphie did with the flare, or which NPC joined the cast, you missed a chapter. :(

* * *

8

* * *

The refugee camp was a hodge-podge of structures, an actual tent city constructed of tarps, sheets of tin, cinder block, particle board, two-by-fours, storage sheds and even a few train cars. Along the rows of dwellings, laundry hung on lines to dry, almost indistinguishable from the bed sheets hung for privacy.

Rinoa followed Zone toward a larger, olive-green military-style tent in the center of the camp and took note of the conditions these people endured here. She wrinkled her nose at the rank scent of garbage and sewage and raw earth combined with too many people in one place at the same time. Children cried and laughed and darted out onto the path in front of them, only to disappear behind the folds of canvas or cotton. Most of them were barefoot.

A woman passed by, her progress aided by a stick that served as a cane, half her face mottled in burn scars.

Rinoa shivered.

The woman wasn't the only one. Wounds and scars were more common than not, even among the children, and many of the adults carried weapons, as if they anticipated an attack at any moment.

She wasn't aware Irvine had taken her hand until he gave her a gentle tug and turned back to see what the hold-up was.

He didn't lecture when he saw her reason for stopping. He tugged the brim of his hat lower over his eyes and bowed his head.

"Shame," he said.

Zone beckoned to them from the flap of the military tent up ahead. Rinoa let go of Irvine's hand and picked up the pace.

Inside, a plump woman in her sixties sat at a table bent over a ledger. Behind her were crates of ammunition, racks of weapons, and various supplies. All the way at the back was a cot with a baby-pink and white blanket draped over it. A photograph, an oil lamp and a religious devotional lay on a crate that served as a bedside table.

Her apron was stained with what Rinoa could only assume was blood - not dried but washed a few times over and faded to a brown-gray. A thick salt and pepper braid snaked over her shoulder, the top of her head covered with a dark blue bandanna. A rifle on a strap lay against her fleshy back.

"Marissa, brought you some newbies," Zone said. He grimaced and pressed a hand to his stomach. "This is Irvine and Rin. Guys, this is Marissa. Leader of the Forest Fox."

Marissa closed the ledger and held out her arm for Zone to take. He helped her to her feet.

"If you're going to stay, we got rules," Marissa said. "We've got a lot of mouths to feed and wounds to treat, so everyone who's able contributes. You do your own laundry. No hoarding food, no stealing, no fighting."

"Yes, ma'am," Rinoa said.

"Also, we don't put up with vigilantes," Marissa continued. "All our assaults are carefully planned. You follow orders or you find somewhere else to camp." She peered at Irvine. "We ain't got room for heroes, so if you've got some half-assed notion you're gonna win this war single-handedly, you ain't gonna last long. Heroes die. They get other people killed. Understood?"

"I'm just a hunter, ma'am," Irvine lied. "But, I'll fight if you want me to. I'm a good shot. Can't do much else, but I'm a good shot."

"Well, that will do just fine," she said. "But not today. Looks like the two of you could use a bath and a meal."

Rinoa's stomach clenched at the thought. It could be lumpy gruel with raisins and she wouldn't complain.

"Zone, why don't you take them over to the mess and find them something to eat, then have Watts clean out Burns and Smither's old room in the train car?" she said. To Rinoa and Irvine, she said, "Hope you don't mind bunking together."

Rinoa hesitated, but Irvine tipped his hat in appreciation.

"Wherever you got room, ma'am."

"You got manners, son," Marissa said. "I like that. Seems like they're in short supply these days."

"The way I see it, there's no cause to be rude," Irvine said. "Especially when someone goes out of their way to show you some hospitality."

"There ain't much in the way of that here," Marissa said. "And save your thanks. Not much around here to be thankful for."

"Naw, that ain't true," Irvine said. "We're still alive."

"Some days, that's not much of a blessing," Marissa said. "Fighting for a lost cause, watching people you care about die for no good reason... It ain't a blessing, son."

"As you say," Irvine said. "Suppose you've seen more of that than we have, bein' here in the thick of it, and all."

"Hmm," Marissa agreed. "You go on now. I'll assign you each a job in the morning. Come see me after breakfast."

"Will do," Irvine said. "We do appreciate it."

Rinoa was torn between admiration for Irvine's charm and sorrow for Marissa and what must have happened to drive her to lead a resistance against a massive and nearly unstoppable force. She eyed the blanket on the cot, the photograph, and understood too much about what it must have cost.

Filled with righteous indignation, Rinoa turned her eyes on Irvine.

"It has to stop," she said.

"All in good time, Rin," he replied. "All in good time."

That was not good enough.

"I know," he said and reclaimed her hand. "Come on. Let's go get settled in."

* * *

Squall feigned sleep aboard the Armageddon while the ebb and flow of conversation alternately lulled him toward slumber and kept him awake. The thrill of flight lost its luster ten minutes in and now the others entertained themselves with cards and chatter about what fate awaited them in Esthar.

He didn't care if Esthar was rumored a mecca of technology and filled with geniuses. He didn't care if the place was governed by intelligent robots made of solid gold or if the sky was a vile shade of lime green or that maybe the city fountains gushed fine chocolate and cheese.

It didn't matter where they went. One place was the same as the next. People would still be assholes, and Squall would still be angry and poor, no matter his geographic coordinates.

As if to prove his point, the three teens in the row ahead of him jostled each other and spat out insults. The seat in front of him banged against his knees and Squall sat up.

"...cyclops! Look at her!"

"RAGE!"

"She's got her eye on you," one said. "Get it? Her _eye_?"

Across the aisle, Fujin's cheeks flamed. She bared her teeth and balled her fists in her lap. She pushed to her feet, ready for a fight, but Raijin swept his arms around her waist and pulled her back into her seat.

"RAGE!"

"Leave her alone, ya know?" Raijin said. "She didn't do nothin' to you."

"Arrrr, matey!"

All three boys cackled.

Squall fished his pocket knife out of his jacket, opened it and tested the blade's edge against the pad of his thumb. The seat banged against his knees again.

He unbelted himself, leaned forward and slipped both arms around the headrest in front of him. With one hand, he grabbed a fist full of hair and pressed the tip of the blade under the young man's chin.

"Say that again. I dare you."

"Let him go!" one of the other boys said. "We were just messing around."

"She lost her eye during the bombing of Timber, ya know?" Raijin shouted. "You think that's funny?"

Squall tightened his grip.

"Answer him," Squall said.

"No! No, okay? It's not funny!" the boy cried. "Let me go, okay?"

Squall thought of what Seifer might do. How he would handle this.

Seifer would break the kid's nose, put him on his knees and twist his earlobe until the kid apologized to his satisfaction.

Tempting, but not Squall's style.

He pressed the knife against the boy's throat a little harder and gave his hair a sharp yank.

"I'd watch my back from now on if I were you."

"We're sorry, okay?" the offender said. "We didn't mean it."

"Yeah? Well, I do."

"ASSHOLE," Fujin added, then buried her face in Raijin's chest. Raijin hugged her tight. "MEAN."

"Ya know?"

Squall released the kid, belted himself into his seat and examined the point of his pocket knife. On the tip, a small smear of blood gleamed crimson in the artificial light. Satisfied, he closed it and returned it to his pocket.

No one messed with his family.

* * *

They arrived in Esthar without fanfare. Seagill and Zabac ushered them down the gangplank and into transport vehicles. From there, it was a short drive to a military compound surrounded by tall fences and barbwire.

Quistis expected to be taken to dorms to settle in, but instead, they stashed their belongings in footlockers and were herded into a classroom. At each desk was a computer.

She'd seen a couple of these at school, but never got the chance to use one for more than a few minutes.

"This is an aptitude test," Seagill said. "It will determine your skill set, as well as your overall competency and value to us."

He passed a stack of papers and a box of pencils to a girl in the front row.

"We are not the G-Army. You must pass the minimum competency requirements in order to become part of our organization," he said. "Those that do not will return home."

Quistis glanced at Zell, and then Raijin. Neither fared well in school. One for his lack of focus, and the other for what Quistis long suspected was an undiagnosed learning disability.

It wasn't as if either was unintelligent. They were both smart in their own way, but she feared the test would not be able to determine that.

"The top scorers will be considered for leadership and officer training," Seagill said. "The rest will report to infantry and support roles, depending on your particular skill set. Following this, there will be a more in-depth medical exam than the cursory one you received in Centra, and a physical fitness test. These will be factored into your overall score."

Quistis shivered. There were a lot more requirements than she expected.

What if she didn't pass? How would she face Seifer if she was told to go home?

Squall passed her the stack of papers and the box of pencils. She took one of each and looked over the instructions on how to use the computer. It seemed simple enough.

"Please log on to the console and follow the instructions," Seagill said. "You may begin the exam as soon as it loads. When you are finished, raise your hand. Good luck."

The first section of the exam was all math and the questions were basic. The rest of the room scribbled calculations on the back of their instructions sheet, but Quistis didn't need to. She blazed through a series of simple calculations and moved on to the next section - spelling and language. Then came sequences, patterns, maps, logic, and spatial reasoning.

Nearby, Raijin scratched his head. Zell thrummed the pencil against his thigh and bounced his knee at a rapid and annoying pace.

What if they didn't pass? Quistis didn't want to lose any more of her family. This was an opportunity for something better, for all of them.

She couldn't afford to worry now. She needed to focus on her own exam.

The only part that Quistis struggled with was the section on electronics. She didn't know much about volts and watts or currents or airwaves, so she guessed her way through it and hoped for the best. If she'd known ahead of time, she would have studied it. Her lack of foresight would bring down her score.

When she completed the exam, she looked around to see the rest still focused on their screens. She raised her hand.

Seagill looked her in the eye, checked his watch, and cocked his head.

"Did you need assistance?" he asked.

"No. I'm finished."

He blinked, cast a glance at Zabac, and typed something into the console at his desk. He stared at the screen, then at Quistis for a long, uncomfortable moment. She withered under his stare.

She did something wrong.

Seagill waved her to the front and escorted her from the room and into an adjacent classroom.

"What did I do?" she asked. "Can I retake it?"

"You did nothing wrong," he said. "In all my years, I have never seen a recruit finish the exam that quickly. It takes most about two hours to complete. You finished in under an hour."

"Oh."

"You may move along to the medical portion," he said. "Down the hall, the last door on the right."

In the exam room, a nurse asked her to strip down to her underwear. Her hands shook and her skin prickled but she did as told.

"Step onto the scale," the nurse said.

Quistis did so and watched the nurse slide the scales back and forth until they balanced.

"You're about 15 pounds underweight."

"Is that bad?"

"It's not good, but it's not something that can't be fixed with proper diet and nutrition."

They drew blood, poked, prodded, checked her vision, and asked for a urine sample. Then, it was onto the physical fitness test, the one thing Quistis was positive she would not pass.

The others worked physical jobs. Quistis tutored. The others fought, sometimes with each other for fun and knew all kinds of self defense moves, but Quistis only used her fists when it was unavoidable. She could throw a decent punch, but that was all.

She did push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups, ran on a treadmill, lifted weights and tried and failed to climb a rope. Hyne, she was going to fail. They would send her home.

"Any special skills we need to know about?" the instructor asked.

There was something, but the last time she demonstrated her talent, it destroyed her only hope for a normal life.

"...I."

"Recruit. Answer me. Do you have any skills? Hand to hand combat training or inborn magical abilities?"

"Yes," she said and wrapped her arms around her middle. "But I haven't used it since I was little."

"Please demonstrate."

"I'm not sure if I remember how."

"Try."

Quistis thought of the circumstances of their last occurrence.

Fear.

 _...she knocks over a lamp. It splits into pieces and she receives a cuff across the cheek from her foster father. He reeks of alcohol and looms over her, bloodshot eyes wide and his lip curled in a sneer. He strikes her again and the magic rips out of her, knocks him to the floor, wounds him..._

That old fear welled up inside her and she closed her eyes as her skin crawled with something otherworldly and unnatural. She pictured him and his red-rimmed eyes, the broken bits of glass scattered across the floor. The sting of his slap.

Something tore from her very soul, a burning-hot light that tasted like metal and smelled of burnt hair and sounded like hell unleashed. There came a scream and a shout, a warning, a cry of pain. Quistis willed it to end, but she could not stop until it ran its course.

She slumped to the ground and folded in on herself when she saw the instructor on the ground. Others gathered around him and lifted him to a sitting position. He stared at her like she was poison.

"Get Seagill in here. Now."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to."

"Sorry?" the instructor slurred. His eyes were unfocused, but his grin was broad. "You've got Blue Magic, kid. Do you know how rare that is?"

Blue Magic? Quistis had never heard of it. Seifer, Raijin and Fujin all possessed elemental magic. Rare, but not unheard of. Hers was different. She didn't know how, but it was.

The Vice President arrived and guided the shell-shocked Quistis from the room and into the infirmary. He seated her at the desk, offered her a box of tissues, and allowed her a minute alone to collect herself.

When he returned, he sat at the desk beside her.

"Will it make you feel better to know you passed the written exam?" he asked. "You scored in the 98th percentile, Quistis."

"Oh," Quistis said. "I thought for sure -"

"With marks like that, you can do anything you want," he said, "but you lack confidence."

Quistis could not disagree.

"As I rule, I do not mentor recruits," he said. "However, I'd like to make an exception for you."

"You don't even know me," she said. "Why would you take me under your wing?"

"Because I don't think you will realize your full potential without a mentor who believes in you," he said. "And I believe you can and will do great things, Quistis. If you're willing to do the work to get there."

Quistis detected no ulterior motives, no hint that her education would come with a price tag or expectations. As genuine as he was, Quistis hesitated to accept his offer.

"The choice is yours, of course," he said. "Following your basic training, you are free to choose any path you wish, based on your scores. Take that time to think it over."

"I will," Quistis said. "I appreciate the opportunity, Sir."

"One more thing," he said. "Learn to trust yourself, Quistis. Do that, and nothing can stop you."

* * *

Following the departure of her family, Ellone spent the day by herself. She wandered the house for a while and took stock of all the neglect her makeshift family endured in her absence. The cupboard was nearly bare, with only a loaf of stale bread, a bag of rice, and a handful of canned goods. The fridge didn't work and instead of food, contained mismatched dinnerware and utensils. Everything was old and in poor repair.

When Seifer didn't return as expected, Ellone decided to clean. She washed a load of laundry and hung it on the line to dry, then started on the bathrooms. She scrubbed and wiped and rinsed everything, only to discover once she finished, it looked as dirty as it did when she started.

She swept the bedroom and tidied up, but left everything exactly as it was. Just in case one of them came home.

Neither Cid nor Edea left their room. Ellone checked on them around noon and found the door locked. She knocked once and called out to them.

"Go away!" Edea shouted.

So much for her hope that their reunion would help. Eventually they would come out, or she would force her way in and come up with another plan. For now, she would leave them in peace. For now.

It was late afternoon by the time she started on the kitchen. No amount of cleaner or elbow grease made a difference. Too many years of neglect took its toll, and there was no undoing it.

When Seifer finally did return, Ellone was on her hands and knees with a stiff-bristled scrub brush and a bucket of soapy water. He stood over her, dressed in white with a wad of dirty white fabric in one hand and a package wrapped in butcher paper in the other.

"You're wasting your time," he said. "Those stains will still be there long after we're all dead."

Ellone sat back on her heels and looked up at her Knight.

"Just getting home from school?" she asked.

Seifer snorted. He tossed the package on the counter.

"I dropped out a year ago."

"Seifer-"

"Don't start," he said. "Someone had to pay the bills. I was just wasting my time there, anyway."

"Cid didn't help out at all?"

"He didn't eat much," Seifer said. "That helped."

Ellone stood up, wiped her hands on the old, flower-print apron she found in the closet earlier and bowed her head.

"I'm sorry I've caused everyone so much trouble."

"Can you cook?"

"What?"

"Zell did most of the cooking," he said and hitched his thumb at the counter. "Got some steaks from work. If I cook them, I'll just ruin good meat."

"I can cook, a little," she said. "I'm no chef."

"I'm going to get cleaned up," he said. "Then I'll see if there's anything we can use out in the garden."

There was only salt, pepper and garlic powder in the pantry to season it, but Ellone made do without complaint.

Seifer returned to the kitchen, his hair damp, the scent of soap in his wake. He took a bowl from the broken fridge and went out the back door.

He looked tired, worn out, from too much responsibility at such a young age. There was more to it, but their connection was not as strong as it once was. The time apart weakened the bond, perhaps enough that she could finally break it and set him free.

She closed her eyes and leaned against the counter. If she could will it so, he could live a normal life. Move on. Do whatever he chose to do with himself. He deserved more than this, and it was clear he did not want to be owned.

"Don't," Seifer said from the doorway. "Too late for that."

"You don't want me to try?"

He set a bowl of fresh green beans on the counter. She couldn't read the look on his face.

"Don't know anything else, El," he said. "You're stuck with me."

"If there's a way to do it," she said. "Isn't it worth it?"

"Worth it for who? You? Me?"

"You understand what could happen," she said. "You know I might end up like Edea, or worse, Adel."

Seifer snapped the ends off a couple of green beans and tossed them into a pot.

"You won't."

"How do you know."

"Because I won't _let_ you," he said. "Matron's gone nuts because her Knight is a drunken loser. Adel didn't have one. You have me, and I won't let you."

Ellone smiled at his tenacity. So much changed while she was gone, but maybe, not as much as she thought.

"How do you like your steak?" she asked.

"However you want to cook it. Not picky. Don't really care if you burn the shit out of it."

Edea and Cid did not join them for dinner. Seifer attempted to coax them out of the room, first with the harassed demands of a parent trying to reason with an unruly toddler, and then with outright threats to bust the door down. Neither worked.

They ate their meal in an awkward silence. Seifer was too tired and Ellone struggled to engage him in polite conversation. He ate every bite on his plate and went for seconds, something Ellone suspected he wasn't able to do very often.

He helped clear the table and washed the dishes, then turned in for the night. By the time Ellone climbed into her old childhood bed, Seifer snored softly on the other side of the room, already tangled in the sheet the same way he used to when he was a boy.

She watched him in darkness for a while, comforted by his presence and proximity. The gulf between them was wide, but he was there, just a few steps away if she needed him or if he needed her. In sleep, he looked so much younger, so much more innocent than the almost-man he appeared while awake.

Ellone closed her eyes and settled in and let the crash of waves against rock lull her into a dreamless sleep.

A scream in the night cut short her slumber, and she woke to the scent of smoke and something sulphurous. She sat up and blinked herself awake, unsure if it was just a dream or if they were under attack.

Dull, reddish light spilled from the doorway, the air murky and thick. The screams came again and Ellone got out of bed. She padded to the door and paused when Seifer's hand clasped her arm. He stood close enough to feel his breath against her temple.

"What the hell is that?"

Ellone shook her head and continued toward the light, her stomach in knots.

Beyond the threshold, the light was brighter, more purely red, and the scent of sulfur grew stronger. She breathed in through her mouth and tried not to choke on the noxious fumes.

Tendrils of darkness crawled along the walls, like the tentacles of some ocean beast and nearly as tangible. Seifer cursed and took hold of her other arm, prepared to snatch her back should they attempt to steal her from him.

The red light grew more and more intense the closer they drew to Cid and Edea's room. The screams louder and filled with pain, madness and rage. The light stung her eyes. Ellone sensed immense power up ahead and almost ran from it.

She was not a fighter, but she was no coward. Whatever this was, she would not run.

Shaking, she stepped forward.

In the room beyond, there was nothing Ellone recognized. A cavernous space instead of a bedroom, the walls glimmered like they were encrusted in precious jewels. The floor was void-dark and gleamed like spilled blood. No bed, no furniture, just four walls and a ceiling that reached to a black, moonless and starless infinity.

Edea hovered in the middle of the room, naked. Her feet dangled toward the floor and her arms spread wide as though she could take flight. Her face tipped toward the ceiling and her long, tangled hair coiled like serpents around her face. Veins of gold and black marred her cheeks and arms.

 _...not the one...just a vessel...ellone..._

Cid knelt on the floor, his naked body pale and infirm and his head bowed in deference. Ellone turned her face away from him, away from the ravages of time that left him pale, flabby and sickly. She wanted to remember him the way he was – just a touch overweight but still strong and competent, still a man with a mind of his own.

He murmured in a language Ellone didn't understand, but his words held the cadences of a prayer or an oath. A pledge. A renewal of vows.

Edea lifted her head and her matted tresses fanned out behind her as her feet touched the ground. Smoke billowed out from her palms and enshrouded Cid in a blanket of charcoal.

"You."

This was not the Edea she knew. The spirit she sensed in the room with them bore no resemblance to the one Ellone felt every day since she was a child. Their power recognized and acknowledged one another as sisters, as kindred and family. This was something hostile and alien and Ellone shuttered her mind to protect herself from its presence.

Coils like the horns of a ram formed on the sides of Edea's head and the madness in her eyes cleared, but it was not Edea staring back at her. This was someone else, a cold and deadly presence that Ellone at once recognized as familiar, yet foreign and dangerous.

Ellone stepped away from the door and her back hit Seifer's chest. He wrapped strong, protective arms around her, his cheek laid against hers. His heartbeat raced a split second behind hers.

Cid rose to his feet as the smoke cleared. Archaic scaled armor covered his body and it gleamed anthracite and indigo in the harsh red light. His irises glowed violet, back-lit with murderous intent. A strange sword rippled into being, his grip on it expert and deadly.

"Hyne almighty," Seifer murmured.

He pushed Ellone behind him and braced for Cid's blow. Ellone threw up a barrier of protection around them, just as Cid's blade came down and sliced across Seifer's bicep. A loud pop like gunfire rattled the floor and the scent of gunpowder mingled with sulfur and smoke.

Ellone, in defense of her Knight let loose the most powerful magic in her arsenal. It plunged them into a darkness so pure, it thickened the air to the consistency of tar. Ellone could not draw breath for several seconds and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. A burst of light pulsed from her body, hellfire hot and so intense, it singed the hair on her arms. The walls glittered like diamonds as it rippled through the room and burned everything in its path.

Edea screamed as Ellone's magic felled her Knight and singed her skin. She returned fire with shards of ice that melted as they passed through Ellone's shell of protection, yet still peppered her face like thousands of tiny needles. Seifer absorbed most of the damage, slipped to his knees, but rose again with a grimace of pain as threads of curative magic reached from Ellone's fingertips and twined around his body to repair his wounds.

A phantom voice whispered inside Ellone's head as she readied for more. A call to the dark parts of her power, a seductive voice that urged her to give in to the corruption in her magic.

Tempting. So tempting. What she could do with such power. The things she could create. Anything she wanted. Anything Seifer desired. It was all hers for the taking if she let herself be what she truly was.

"No," Seifer murmured in her ear. "Don't listen to it, El. It's full of shit."

Ellone gasped as the presence recoiled from him with a sensation like ice flowing in her blood. His arms wrapped around her and a ring of fire encircled Sorceress and Knight like a wall of protection.

Edea and Cid both flickered and disappeared as the fire burned hot around their younger counterparts. The room shifted from cavernous chamber to a plain, messy bedroom. The unearthly red faded to darkness.

They were gone, but flames still burned its protective ring around them.

This magic was not hers. It was not the magic of the other, older and more experienced Sorceress. It was Seifer's doing.

His grip was fierce. She sensed his awe understood something she did not understand before.

He was not her sword.

He was her shield.


	9. Chapter 9

Ice patches formed in places where the rain pooled. Sleet pelted Xu's bare arms. Her hands and feet were frozen solid inside her canvas shoes, and her teeth chattered as she followed their willing hostage into the mountains. Selphie limped along behind Xu, her progress hindered by her wound.

The potion helped only so much, but Selphie refused to use the others in her stash, in case they needed them for more grievous injury later. Xu couldn't fault her for planning ahead, even if it meant she suffered. Selphie might be part industrious squirrel, part certified nutcase, but she had guts aplenty.

"We should find shelter soon," Nida said. "I don't think this storm is going to let up for a while."

He shot a glance over his shoulder to Selphie and frowned at her heavy limp. Worry creased his brow.

If Xu was in his place, she would keep her eyes peeled for an opportunity to escape. This guy was either too nice for his own good, or a blithering idiot. Maybe both.

He wasn't wrong about the weather, nor was he wrong to be concerned for Selphie. For all her determination to keep going, she wouldn't last much longer. The wound in her leg slowed her down, but the one in her shoulder continued to bleed heavily.

Rain mixed with sleet, turned back to rain, then to snow, and sleet again, and still they walked. For hours, it seemed, they walked through mud puddles glazed with ice and up steep and slippery hills full of hidden dangers like exposed tree roots and divots and rocks.

The temperature continued to drop, the wind picked up. Nida was right. They were going to freeze to death if they didn't find shelter soon.

At least they would not die prisoners. Better to die free in the middle of the woods than die of neglect, abuse, and starvation behind a fence.

"Damn cold out here," Nida said. He stopped walking and peeled off his sodden uniform jacket. "Sorry I didn't think of being a gentleman earlier, but you had a gun on me, you know? I only have this one, but maybe you can take turns? Might warm you up a little."

"Give it to Selphie," Xu said, teeth chattering. "I'm fine."

"It's freezing out here," he said. "We'll die of hypothermia if we don't find somewhere to warm up."

"Yeah, I already figured that out, genius," Xu said. "Give her the jacket and let's keep moving."

"No need to be rude," Nida said. "I could have sounded the alarm back there and I didn't."

Xu helped the shaking Selphie into the wet jacket and sighed. It was a nice gesture, but a lot of good it would do.

"Why didn't you?" she asked. "You're one of them."

"I'm not one of them," he said. "It was either join them or wind up locked in a pen like you guys were. I picked the side that got regular meals. Otherwise, there's not much difference between the two."

Xu sneered. "Doubt that."

"You don't have to believe me."

"Good, because I don't," Xu said. "Let's keep moving."

Xu wondered which side of dawn they were on as they continued down the trail through the never-ending forest. It seemed they'd walked for hours and hadn't made much progress, but how could she tell when it all looked the same?

"Hyne, please tell me we're not walking in circles," she said to herself.

They walked, ascending the mountain trail at a snail's pace. The weather deteriorated, the wind grew stronger and the sleet fell sideways. Xu's hair froze at the ends and Selphie stumbled and fell twice. Nida rushed to her side before Xu could and helped her up. The third time she fell, he offered himself as a crutch and lifted her over the more worrisome obstacles, but Selphie was running on fumes.

So was Xu. Only sheer stubbornness kept her from sitting down next to a boulder and waiting for the cold to take her.

"Hey, looks like there's a cabin up ahead," Nida said. He let Selphie go and took two steps forward to squint at the structure. "Let's go check it out."

Selphie followed, but stumbled over a branch. She fell face-first onto the muddy path with a soft cry of pain. Xu helped her up and her hand came away bloody.

"Just a little further, Selphie," Xu said. "Hang in there, okay?"

She looked bad, even in the dark. Blood, mixed with rain and streaked down her bare leg. Her shift was soaked with it, all the way to the hem. Whether or not Selphie liked it, she needed another potion.

"Not feeling so hot," Selphie said.

"Can't imagine why," Xu said. "We're almost there. I hope."

Selphie slung her arm around Xu's shoulders and the pair hobbled after Nida. The shape in the distance disappeared as a mix of snow and sleet fell heavy and hard, but they pressed on until Nida let out a hiss of excitement.

"It's a house!" he said. "Doesn't look like anybody's used it in a while, either."

Xu helped Selphie up the steps to a covered porch. Selphie leaned into her and shivered, her teeth knocking together in a loud, manic clatter against Xu's shoulder.

Nida tried the door.

Locked. Of course it was.

Xu seated Selphie on a dry-rotted rocking chair and went to the window. She pried off the screen with numb hands and tossed it aside. She curled her fingers around the lip of the window pane and tugged it upward. To her surprise, it gave a quarter inch, and then stopped.

"Give me a hand," she said to Nida. "The latch isn't secured, but I think it's stuck."

Together they jiggled and jostled and pulled until the window opened just enough to allow Xu to slip through.

Inside, the barest suggestion of furniture covered in drop cloths confirmed a lack of residents. The smell of dust hinted it had been a long time since anyone visited. Someone's summer house or hunting cabin. A place no one would visit in this weather.

She unlocked the door and ushered Selphie inside. Nida followed and switched on his flashlight, swept it around the room, and whistled.

"Better than I hoped," he said. "Looks cozy. There's even a fireplace!"

"Close the window," Xu ordered and uncovered the nearest recliner. She pushed Selphie into it and examined her wounds. "You need that other potion, Selphie."

"But-"

"There's no point in hanging onto it if you're dead," Xu said.

"It's not that bad."

"It is," Xu said. "There's a good chance it'll get infected after running around in the woods all night. Besides, you've lost a lot of blood and you're still bleeding. What good are you if you can't run if they come for us?"

Selphie sighed, reached into the bodice of her dress to retrieve the potion she stashed in her bra. Xu took it from her, uncapped it and poured a measure into each wound. To her surprise, bubbles formed around the ragged tears in her skin and something small and round pushed outward from the hole in her shoulder. It hit the wood floor with a metallic clink and Xu picked it up.

The bullet.

She gave a soft laugh and held it up for Selphie to see.

"Want a souvenir?"

"Heck yeah!" Selphie said and held out her hand to receive it. "I mean, getting shot sucked but it's not every day a girl gets shot for escaping from a Galbadian death camp."

Xu sat back on her heels and patted Selphie's knee.

"It'll be one hell of a story ten years from now," Xu said. "If we live that long."

Selphie's wound was on the mend, but she was still pale and weak. Xu ordered her to stay put while she investigated the cabin. There had to be blankets somewhere. Maybe food.

She pressed the gun into Selphie's hands, stood up, and rubbed her goose bump-covered arms and looked around. The temperature inside wasn't much warmer than outside, but they were out of the wind and the rain-snow-sleet mix. She weighed the practicality of starting a fire in the fireplace versus the possibility someone tracked them.

A fire sounded heavenly, but safety took priority. Not smart to telegraph their location.

"Nida, why don't you see if there's food in the kitchen," she said. "I'm going to go find blankets and warm clothes or something."

"Sure," Nida said.

"And turn off that flashlight unless you really need it."

In the first of two bedrooms, Xu found a thick down comforter and a crocheted blanket underneath the dust cloth draped over the bed. In the closet, she found another made of fleece and a pile of sweat shirts and sweaters encased in plastic. Glad for the owner's foresight, she dragged her finds into the living room and instructed Selphie to strip, then she searched the bathroom for towels.

Selphie left the wet clothes in a pile on the floor and Xu frowned at her tiny, skinny body. She could count every one of Sephie's ribs. Xu supposed she looked much the same, except her own body was covered in greenish-yellow bruises.

Xu stripped off her wet clothes and selected a sweat shirt from the pile, a pair of men's flannel pajama pants, and wrapped herself in an over-sized cardigan that fell all the way to her knees. She stuffed her feet into thick woolen socks and wrapped her wet hair in a plush towel.

Already warmer, she uncovered the couch and sat down with her feet tucked beneath her. Selphie yawned and did the same. Xu wrapped them both in the down comforter and they huddled together for warmth.

"So what now?" Selphie asked.

"I don't know," Xu said. "Maybe I'll go home to Centra. I don't know if there's anything left to go home to, but it's better than staying here."

"They'll invade Centra eventually," Selphie said with a yawn. "I heard one of the soldiers talking about how all the rebels are fleeing south and that Galbadia's headed down there to wipe them out."

"Centra's big and empty," Xu said. "A lot of places to hide. Besides, there isn't much where I'm from. Just a small town. Not a lot of people."

"Where's that?"

"Cape of Good Hope," Xu said. "Maybe you know it?"

Selphie's face screwed up and she cocked her head to the side.

"Sounds familiar. Was there a lighthouse?"

"Yeah," Xu said. "And a beach."

Selphie's eyelids fluttered and her expression said she almost remembered. Almost.

Feisty little Selphie. Always in trouble. Mud in her hair, sand in her shoes, her elbows and knees scraped, standing toe to toe with Almasy, ready to play as hard as the boys.

Xu dropped an arm around Selphie's shoulders and willed her to remember her big sister, the one she alternately loved and loathed depending on the day and how much mischief she'd gotten into.

"Maybe I read about it in a book," Selphie said. She yawned again and dropped her head to Xu's shoulder. "I bet it's nice."

She thought about the constant noise and bickering, the broken water heater, the leaky roof, the endless burden placed on her shoulders, baloney sandwiches and bowls of plain rice.

Hyne, how she missed the simplicity of it. It had been awful, but it was paradise compared to everything they'd just been through. Xu might have killed someone for just a bite of baloney on stale bread.

"It was a hellhole, but it was home," Xu said.

A rush of air rattled the vent on the floor and the cold room smelled of burning dust. She sat up and looked around, then focused on the shape of Nida standing in the doorway of what she guessed was a kitchen.

"The power's on," he said. "Heater works."

He held up a pair of cans.

"Found food too," he said cheerfully. "You want beans or canned peaches? There's also soup. I can heat some up."

Xu didn't care. The soup sounded warm and delicious, but she was hungry enough to eat her own hand.

"Selphie?" she asked.

"Peaches," Selphie said. "But I don't mind sharing."

That was good enough for Xu. She accepted the can of beans and a spoon. Nida sat in the recliner across from them and watched Selphie shovel peach slices into her mouth.

"What?" Xu demanded.

"What do we do now?" Nida asked. "I... I can't go home."

"We?" Xu asked between bites of beans. " _We_ aren't doing anything."

"But..."

"He helped us, Xu," Selphie chimed in. "He could have just turned us in or something."

"Yeah," Nida agreed. "I could have shot you."

"Just because you helped us get out of there doesn't mean we owe you," Xu said. "You're still the enemy and I don't trust you, so consider yourself lucky I didn't kill you the second we were clear."

"But you didn't, and now I'm a fugitive," Nida said.

"By your own choice, pal," Xu said. "I don't take responsibility for your decision to play along."

Nida pushed to his feet, his head hanging, and returned to the kitchen. Pots and pans clanked lightly together, a can opener motor whirred, and Xu stabbed at her beans like they'd offended her. Selphie just stared with sad puppy eyes.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"He helped us. Got us to safety."

"Could still be a trap," Xu said. "Anyway, I spent most of my life being responsible for other people, and I'm not about to start collecting strays again. He's a big boy. He can fend for himself."

Selphie pouted and passed off the nearly empty can of peaches in exchange for the beans.

"There's safety in numbers, you know," Selphie muttered.

"We don't need him."

"I wouldn't have made it up the mountain without him."

"You would have if you'd taken the second potion."

"No, I _wouldn't_ have," Selphie said in a small voice. "I kept falling because I was too cold to move right, not because I got shot. A potion wouldn't have helped that."

Maybe not, but it was stupid to rely on a stranger for help. Especially not one that was a very recent defect from the G-Army and might very well turn them in to save his own skin.

Whatever Nida was making in the kitchen smelled divine. The soup, Xu guessed, and she regretted her choice to take the beans. Warm soup would chase the chill from her bones faster than the dry clothes and blankets.

"Think he's got a family somewhere?" Selphie wondered. "Somebody who's worried about him?"

"Don't do that," Xu said.

"What?"

"Make him human," Xu said. "Sympathize with him."

"He's a person," Selphie said. "Kinda obvious that he didn't have much of a choice, you know?"

"He picked the wrong one," Xu said. The peaches tasted strange after the beans. The texture was slimy. Xu ate anyway. "Besides, I think we should ki-"

Nida bustled into the room, a mug in each hand.

"Soup?" he asked.

Selphie looked at Xu as if this proved her point. As if a man bearing soup proved he was no monster, just a nice guy with no ulterior motives who would not murder them in their sleep.

Xu accepted his offer and wrapped both hands around the warmth of the mug. It was chicken soup, judging by the smell. Xu tasted it. Definitely chicken soup, but thick with vegetables and egg noodles. _Substantial_ soup.

Selphie watched her over the rim of her own mug as warmth began to bleed back into Xu's bones. Nida's smile was full of hope tinged with worry.

"Eat as much as you want," Nida said. "I found eight cans of that stuff in the pantry, so I can make more if you're still hungry."

Selphie's eyebrows raised as she sipped the broth, but her eyes stayed on Xu. As if an offering of unlimited soup would change her mind.

But, it was hard to imagine Nida's earnestness was just a put-on. She didn't trust him, but boy was he making it hard not to like him.

"I've got crackers, too," he said and tossed a long, sealed package into Selphie's lap. "Soup needs crackers, right?"

"You were saying?" Selphie asked Xu.

"Fine, but one false move, and I'm putting a bullet in his head."

* * *

Squall followed his siblings down a long, sterile corridor, trailing some distance behind Raijin, hyper-aware of the group of bullies behind him, the clinical lighting, and the military types behind glass windows watching them pass.

His whole life was back in Centra, not that it amounted to much but a rotting house set upon a crumbling cliff, but everything here was so very different from the things he knew. Life back home had sucked, but there was comfort in the routine, of knowing that twice a week, Seifer would bring trimmings home from the butcher shop, and that the roof would leak when it rained, and that Zell and Fujin could be counted on to fix the mechanical things that broke.

Here, everything was unknown. On one hand, that was exciting. On the other, he was possibly about to give up his life to fight for something that didn't even belong to him. Why should he care what happened to Esthar, or Balamb, or Dollet when most days, his worries revolved around whether or not they had the basic tools to survive the rest of the week?

The others had seen promise in joining up. Regular meals, pipes that didn't break in the middle of the night, electricity that didn't go out because they couldn't afford to pay the bill. They saw a chance to fight for the good guys and learn a trade that might be useful after the war.

Squall didn't fault them for their hope, but he was a realist. People died in war. They were gunned down or blown up or executed. Recruits like them were little more than cannon fodder.

But, as Seifer pointed out, eventually, Galbadia would arrive on their doorstep, and they would have no choice but to join them or die. If Squall had his way, he'd disappear into the badlands and live off the resources of the wilds while the world burned a hundreds of miles away.

If not for the promise he'd made Seifer, he might have chosen that fate over this. But he had a family to look after, for better or worse.

"Recruits!" A voice called over the chatter. "Look sharp!"

The line of teenagers came to a stop, single file before a set of double doors. Squall peered around Raijin to the Estharian soldiers standing at attention at the head of the group.

"This is the dormitory," one of them said. "This will be your home for the next eight weeks. You are expected to keep your area neat and orderly at all times. There is no food allowed in the dormitory.."

Squall tuned out the lecture about the rules of the dorm. They couldn't be all that different from Xu's rules growing up. She'd run the place in Edea's absence like a drill sergeant. Beds made first thing in the morning, the sheets tucked so tight, she could bounce a Gil coin off them. Floors cleaned daily, not that it made a difference, shelves and furniture dusted every other day, belongings folded or hung neatly in the closet. Zero clutter allowed.

"Your beds are assigned," the soldier said. "Find the footlocker with your name on it. This is your bed for the duration of your training. There will be no trading beds, under any circumstances."

Squall suppressed a yawn. What did it matter what bed someone got? A bed was a bed.

"In your footlocker, you will find your uniform. You have ten minutes to get dressed. Anyone out of uniform will face the consequences," the soldier said. "Now move your asses, recruits!"

The line double-timed it through the doors and into a long room with metal framed beds lining opposite walls. At the end of each was the aforementioned footlocker. Names were affixed to every lid. Squall browsed them until he found his own name, between Trepe, Q. and Kramer, Z.

He opened the footlocker marked, Leonhart, S. and pawed through the things inside. A uniform. Socks and underwear, still in plastic, a pair of boots, and a package of brand new t-shirts.

Squall couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten anything that wasn't second-hand besides the basics. Everything he owned besides socks and underwear, which he wore until they fell apart, were hand-me-downs or bought at a thrift store.

Carefully, he unwrapped the package and unfolded the t-shirts.

Three feet away, Zell rubbed his own brand new t-shirts against his cheek.

"It even smells new," Zell said. "This is the softest thing I've ever had on my face."

Squall snorted back a laugh as he imagined Seifer's potential smart-ass response to that. A shame he wasn't here. Squall understood, but he already sort of missed Seifer's leadership. For all his faults, he'd been their backbone after Xu left.

He rubbed the healing wound between his eyes and sighed. He couldn't rely on anyone but himself now.

"Six minutes, recruits!"

Squall bundled his uniform and boots against his chest and headed for the men's room, where several other recruits in various states of undress hurried to get ready. He joined them, hastily shedding his old, threadbare clothing a piece at a time.

The uniform fit perfectly. Better than anything he'd worn his entire life. Like it had been made specifically for him. The boots were actually his size.

When he stepped out of the men's room, Squall Leonhart felt like a different person.

"Hey man, look at you, ya know?" Raijin said and slapped him on the back. "You clean up pretty nice, yo."

The uniform somehow made Raijin look even bigger than he was, like a wall of muscle, but he was all smiles and full of pride over his new threads.

"Yeah, you too," Squall said.

"Recruits! Line up!"

Squall fell in with the rest and followed the pair of soldiers out of the dorm, down another clinical hallway to a cafeteria not unlike the one he watched other people eat in five days a week at school while he nibbled on stale crackers or went without.

His stomach rumbled at the scent of hot food. Meatloaf or something with gravy. Maybe chicken fried steak. Fresh bread.

It didn't really matter what it was. Squall wasn't picky. He lined up at the counter as one by one, those ahead of him accepted a tray and took a seat. When it was his turn, he grabbed his tray and followed the others to a table near a raised platform on the opposite side of the room.

Zell was already shoveling bits of brownish meat drowning in gravy into his mouth while Fujin examined a fluffy roll. He sat between them and tucked into his own meal, quietly ingesting the unfamiliar flavors and textures of the food. He had no idea what it was he was eating, but it didn't matter. It was food.

Not one of them spoke as they ate, the lone silent group in the room. Laughter and conversation bubbled up all around them, but they were all too focused on the rare privilege of a full, balanced meal to waste time on talk.

He was nearly finished eating when a man in casual dress entered the room – a forty-something man in wrinkled khakis and sandals who limped his way up onto the platform. Squall paid him little mind and returned his attention to his task of mopping up the last of the gravy with his dinner roll.

"Evening, everybody!" the man said. "Sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I, uh, wanted to introduce myself."

The chatter around them died off and Squall fixed his gaze on the guy. The man had to be important if there was a need for introduction, but he didn't look much like a soldier. Twenty years ago, maybe he had been, but now, he just looked like an average middle-aged guy with salt and pepper at the temples of his long, dark hair.

"I'm Laguna Loire," he said affably. "President of Esthar."

Squall sat up straighter.

What had Ellone said before they left? Find a man named Laguna. He'd known Squall's mother. He'd been important to her, and to Ellone. His _father_.

He tuned out whatever Laguna was saying and went back to his childhood, to the stories Ellone used to tell him about a man named Onkalagoona, a name that had made a much younger Squall laugh. He'd always believed Ellone's stories were things she'd come up with on the fly to entertain him, not truth. It never once occurred to him that Onkalagoona was a real person.

Certainly not an important political figure. Definitely not a President. _Absolutely_ not his living, biological father.

How in Hyne's name did Ellone know the President of the Silent Country? How had his mother known him? Was Squall Estarian and not Galbadian as he'd always believed?

He searched the man's face for similarities to his own, but found little in common. Loire's hair was darker. His eyes were green. His mouth and nose were a different shape and his face was long instead of round like Squall's.

It seemed so impossible, to be staring at a man who, according to Ellone, was his birth father. A man who was alive, when Squall had spent his whole life believing him dead. A man in charge of an entire country who presumably lived in the lap of luxury while Squall struggled just to tend to his own basic needs. If it was true, why had Squall and Ellone been raised in an orphanage and not with their family?

Was this for real, or was Ellone mistaken? She'd been young when they were placed in Edea's care. Maybe she'd mis-remembered. Maybe she was wrong.

Polite clapping erupted all around them as Laguna Loire stepped off stage and sat down at a nearby table to speak with the recruits. Squall snapped out of his reverie to glance around at the faces of his siblings. Zell looked perplexed, Quistis suitably impressed, Raijin star-struck, and Fujin, well, who knew what Fujin was thinking?

"Yo, I think that's the guy who was in _The Sorceress' Knight!_ " Raijin hissed. "He played the Knight, ya know?"

"No way," Zell said. "Actors don't become Presidents, man."

"Seifer made us watch that movie like a hundred thousand times," Raijin insisted. "Like, I know every word by heart. I'm sure that's the guy."

"He's coming this way," Quistis said. "Why don't you ask him?"

The President waved as he approached, then claimed the only empty chair at the table like he was one of them. This irked Squall for some reason, but he kept his silence and observed his laid back body language.

"Heya guys," Laguna said. "I'm Laguna. Just wanted to say hi to our newest recruits and say thanks for joining up. Means a lot to Esthar, and to me that you're here."

He'd said that already. Squall detected a hint of nerves behind the relaxed posture, and in his hopeful smile.

"Are you... are you the guy who was in _The Sorceress' Knight?_ " Raijin squeaked, an octave higher than his usual speaking voice.

Laguna's smile fell a little, but he nodded.

"That was me," he said. "I'm surprised kids your age know it. It bombed pretty bad. Voted one of the worst movies ever made back in my day."

"It was our brother's favorite growing up," Quistis said. A pretty blush stained her cheeks. "We used to watch it on the projector when we were little."

"Yeah, we played some dumb game based on it when we were kids," Zell said. "He was always the Knight."

"I was the dragon, yo," Raijin chimed in and roared dramatically.

Laguna laughed, then shuddered.

"That was a real dragon, kids," he said. "Damn near took my head off before I figured out it wasn't a couple of guys in a suit."

"Dude, I told you it was real!" Zell shouted and pointed at Fujin. "See?"

"LIES," she said. "COSTUME."

"Believe me, that dragon was as real as a bite bug at a tea party," Laguna said. "They used the footage from the real battle because the budget was so tight, they couldn't afford to do a second take."

Squall was thrown by the moronic turn of phrase. What, exactly, did that mean? A bite bug at a tea party?

"Your brother? Is he here?" Laguna asked. "I'd love to meet the one guy in the world who actually liked it. Not something I hear everyday!"

"He didn't join," Squall said flatly. "He stayed home to look after my sister, Ellone."

Laguna turned his gaze on Squall. For a split second, his eyes widened at the name patch affixed to Squall's uniform jacket, then they flicked back up to Squall's face.

A little of the warmth in Laguna's eyes died, but Squall didn't flinch or look away. Laguna blinked rapidly and his throat bobbed. Squall would swear the man's eyes misted over.

Then, Laguna Loire growled under his breath, hunched forward and pressed his face into the table as he drew his knee toward his chest.

"Leg cramp!" he hissed. "Ow, ow, ow... goddammit."

"Are you okay?" Quistis worried. "Is there anything we can do?"

"No, no, it'll pass," Laguna said through gritted teeth. "Old injury. Gets me at the worst times."

The others exchanged glances, but Squall kept his eyes on the President, who looked and acted nothing like any president Squall had ever heard of before.

"I, uh," Laguna sputtered, his gaze on the table and his face pale. "I should go. People to meet, puppies to kiss. It was great meeting all of you and thanks a busload for joining the cause."

Squall watched him go, and he didn't miss the way Laguna shot a glance over his shoulder at Squall as he limped his way to the next table.

His father.

The President of Esthar.

And a complete train wreck.

* * *

Irvine removed his hat and followed Zone into a train car near the perimeter of the camp. Ahead of him, Rinoa trailed her fingerips over multi-colored rivets in the metal, graffitied walls. Most of the graffiti depicted anti-Deling images and messages, but a few inspirational quotes hung on the fringes, along with a fair amount of childish ribbing.

It smelled of unwashed feet and sweat. Irvine wrinkled his nose and stayed a half-step behind Rinoa. Through half open doors, Irvine glimpsed tiny rooms outfitted with bunk beds on each wall, meant for rest on long trips. Some were empty, but others were occupied with people either sleeping or playing cards or engaged in hushed conversation.

Clever, to use the abandoned sleeper car as a dorm. That was preferable to the alternative outside, where entire families did their best to make homes behind bed sheets.

"Home sweet hellhole," Zone said as he pushed a sliding door into a recess in the wall. "We didn't get a chance to clean it out, but feel free to keep whatever you like. Anything you don't want, take down to the room at the end of the hall. That's where we keep stuff for community use."

Rinoa entered the cabin before Irvine and turned in a slow circle to examine their new home. It was hard to read the expression on her face, but Irvine sensed her horror at how these people were forced to live.

"Get settled in," Zone said. "Dinner's in an hour. Meet me by the command tent and I'll introduce you guys around."

"Thanks," Rinoa said.

Watts looked Irvine over and hitched his thumb at the aforementioned room down the hall.

"This ain't no soiree," he said. "Help yourself to some threads. Sure something in there will fit you."

Zone flinched at Irvine's narrowed eyes and clutched his midsection.

"I didn't mean it like that," Zone said. "Just, you know, those are nice pants... and..."

"Don't sweat it, friend," Irvine said. "You ain't wrong."

Visibly relieved, Zone straightened and edged out of the room.

"Come find me when you're ready."

"Will do."

Rinoa climbed up into the top bunk and sat on the mattress, hunched forward because the ceiling was too low for her to sit normally, and toyed with the laces of her boots. Neither said anything for a minute and the silence weighed heavily on Irvine's shoulders.

"Why did my father ask you to take me back to Deling City?" Rinoa asked eventually.

"You weren't supposed to know about that."

"Not my fault I heard something I wasn't supposed to hear," Rinoa said. "Why did you agree to it?"

Irvine shuffled his feet and tossed his hat on the bottom bunk.

"When a General of the G-Army asks you for a favor, on the record or otherwise, you do it," Irvine said.

"What did you get out of it?" Rinoa asked.

"The pleasure of your company," he said with a flippant smile.

"Be serious. What did he offer you in return for your services?"

"Nothing," Irvine lied. "I did it out of the goodness of my heart."

"Nobody does anything out of the goodness of their heart anymore," Rinoa said.

"You say that, but you chose to come here to help people," Irvine countered. "Out of the goodness of your heart."

Rinoa turned her face to the wall and brushed dirty strands of hair off her forehead.

"Or maybe you're here to piss your father off," Irvine said. "Maybe you wanna put yourself in harm's way so he has to come rescue you because you need him to prove he cares."

"That's not it," Rinoa said. "Not even close. Tell me what he offered you."

Irvine sat on the lower bunk, just so he wouldn't have to see the anger in her face when he told the truth.

"A promotion," Irvine said. "Better pay. A dorm I didn't have to share with someone else."

"Sorry I ruined that for you," Rinoa said tartly. "Clearly you took it."

"I'd be stupid not to, Rin," he said. "It wasn't what I would have asked for, though. I don't give a damn about that stuff."

"Yeah?" Rinoa fired back. "What would it have been? His approval to date me?"

Irvine snorted and kicked off his dirty boots. What he wouldn't give for a nap.

"Full of yourself, aren't you?" Irvine said. "I'm not interested in dating someone who isn't interested in me, so best you get that idea out of your head."

"He loves you, so I'm sure with your big promotion, he wouldn't be opposed to it," Rinoa said. "He's all about rank and status. No lowly recruits for his little girl, right? Like I can't decide on my own-"

"Stop right there."

Irvine pushed to his feet and stood up to face her. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes flashed, infuriated by the very thought that Irvine and her father might be conspiring to trap her in a relationship.

Rinoa was attractive, and Irvine sincerely enjoyed her company, in spite of her sociopolitical-feminist rants and overly idealistic view of how the world should work. If she showed the slightest bit of romantic interest, Irvine wouldn't turn her away. But he wouldn't do it because her father seemed to think they would be a good match, once he proved himself worthy, but because she wanted him, because maybe, there was something worth exploring beyond friendship.

She'd made it clear that she was only interested in his friendship, if their relationship could be called that, and in Irvine's book, that was the end of it. No sense in pining away or hoping she'd see him as something more. There were plenty of girls in the world.

"Well?" she demanded.

"What I want, he can't help me with," Irvine said. "I can't even ask, because it involves my family."

Rinoa's anger melted away and was replaced by wounded sympathy.

"I'm sure he can do something," Rinoa said. "If he really wanted to."

"He can't," Irvine said. He turned away and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing himself to keep it together. "They were executed. A year ago. Don't even know where they were buried, or _if_ they were buried."

Irvine sighed and wiped his hand over his eyes. He'd already cried all he was going to cry over them, first when they were taken away, and again when he'd gotten word of their deaths. Crying over it now would change nothing.

"I took his offer because I was in no position to say no," Irvine said. "And that's the truth."

Rinoa sighed and sniffled, then came the thud of her boots against the floor and a light touch against his back.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know. You never brought it up."

"Forgive me for not disclosing the dirty details of my insurgent family's demise to the daughter of a Galbadian General," Irvine said. "Wasn't sure if I could trust you."

"You don't trust me?"

"You're reckless," Irvine said. "Brave, but reckless."

Irvine picked up his hat and worried the brim. Trust was hard, and Rinoa, as much as he believed she meant no harm, was not an exception.

"And?"

"I still think you've got a hell of a lot to learn about the real world," Irvine said and gestured at the window, where they had a view of the camp, "but I'd say... this is a lot better than bein' somebody's puppet."

Rinoa crashed into him, her arms encircling his waist in a tight cinch that squeezed the breath out of him.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," she said.

"Better this than prison," he said, "which is where I'll wind up if your father's people catch up to us."

Rinoa let him go and stepped back.

"He won't send anyone," Rinoa said. "It would would look pretty bad if people found out his daughter ran away to join the resistance."

"He could always say you were kidnapped."

"That would look just as bad," she said. "What kind of General lets his daughter get kidnapped?"

"He could say it was me."

"He won't," she said. "He would rather pretend I was safe and sound in a secret location than admit he made an error in judgment about his most celebrated sniper."

If she was right, he had nothing to fear from Caraway. If she wasn't, there would be hell to pay.

"You should go find some clothes," Rinoa said. "I'm going to freshen up."

Irvine watched her go, placed his hat back on his head, and ambled down the hall to the store room.

This was not the road he would have chosen for himself, but it was the one he was on at present. As before, good or bad, he'd follow it, wherever it lead.

* * *

"What the fuck just happened?" Seifer demanded. He flicked on the light and looked around the room, at the charred walls and the strange runes burned into the peeling wallpaper and turned to a wide-eyed Ellone. "What the fuck, Elle?"

"I... I don't know," she said. Her jaw trembled and her eyes were wild. "I don't know."

"Where the hell did they go?" he demanded.

Tongues of flame licked up from the carpet at the foot of the bed and Seifer extinguished them with a bath towel left among the dirty laundry on the floor. He choked on the smell of melting plastic and charred wood, a terrible tremor in his limbs.

"Are you trying to burn the fucking house down, Elle?"

How did two people just vanish like that? Sure, he'd heard stories of the things Sorceresses could do. They walked through walls and could make things appear better or more appealing than they really were. They could vanish into thin air and reappear somewhere else, could cause storms and manipulate minds and bend and warp reality. They started wars and conquered nations, enslaved the people with promises and false ideals and visions of a world that didn't exist.

He knew the stories. He just never believed they were true.

Ellone laid her hands against his upper arms. A cool sensation radiated out across his skin. His racing heart slowed. Forced calm clashed with panic and he wrenched away from her, not ready to fall into placid obedience on her orders.

"Quit it!" he said.

"You don't know?" she asked. "Where the fire came from?"

"That's why I'm asking you, Elle," he said. "I don't have a fucking clue!"

"It was you," she said. "You did that. To protect me."

Seifer refused to believe that. True, every now and then he could start a fire in the wood stove without a match, or light a candle just by touching the wick, but never anything on such a large scale. It wasn't something he consciously did, nor did he do it often.

"The hell I did."

Ellone just looked at him.

"Stop looking at me like that," he said. "Where did they go?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No."

"Can you... Can we do that?"

"I don't know how," Ellone said. "She never taught me."

Seifer paced the room, though the space didn't allow him to go far before he had to turn around. He stared at the charred walls, the unmade bed, the scent of what he could only name madness in the air, and saw his future. Tethered to her the way he was, Seifer understood his fate lay in the insanity scrawled on the walls. Destined to become that bloated, naked, enslaved waste of a human being, bowing before his Sorceress on his knees.

He cursed at his pale reflection in the window, his face framed by fire-eaten muslin and back-lit by the glow that emanated from Ellone's skin. Dove's wings extended from her back, the feathers pure white edged in gray and soft as clouds.

When he turned around to face her, there were no wings, no pale glow, just Ellone and her big, scared brown eyes.

Traces of sulfur still lingered in the air. Unable to stand it any longer, Seifer took Ellone by the hand and led her from the room and out into the night.

Outside he breathed in lungful after lungful of clean ocean air to purge the reek of smoke and brimstone from his sinuses. He sat down on the steps above the beach and dropped his head into his hands. He sat there so long, he didn't even notice the fog roll in from the sea until mist dampened his skin and hair and clothes.

"That's why I wanted to release you," Ellone said after a time. "I don't want you to become what Cid is. Or was. Or... what he's about to be."

Seifer cut his eyes at her. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest with you," Ellone said. "Nothing good, though."

What they witnessed definitely wasn't good.

"And what happens to you if you cut me loose, Elle? Do you wind up a raving lunatic like Edea?"

"...maybe."

"Maybe?"

Ellone cleared her throat and wrapped her arms around her middle.

"Maybe I end up that way, no matter what," she said. "You ever hear of a Sorceress who got a happy ending? Outside of fiction?"

Seifer shook his head.

"If it comes down to it, you have my permission to kill me if I wind up losing my mind," Ellone said. "I'd rather die than be what Adel was."

"You don't know -"

"I knew Adel," Ellone interrupted. "She was a monster. She wasn't born that way, but the magic made her that way, Seifer. It ate away at her humanity and her ability to love or understand anything but power. I knew her, so don't tell me I don't know what it does."

Seifer conceded her point. It was easy to forget Ellone's past. Easy to forget she'd survived a childhood worse than his.

"If it comes to that," Ellone said. "If you see me going sideways, I need you to take care of it."

"You're asking me to kill you."

"Yes," Ellone said. "If it needs to be done, then do it."

Seifer snorted and laid his face in his hands. She was asking for the impossible. He could no more end her life than he could force himself to jump off the cliff.

"Why not do it now?" Seifer snapped. "Spare us both the trouble?"

"Seifer –"

"They're going to hunt you, Elle," he said, "and probably kill me so what the hell are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know!" she shouted. "I don't have any more answers than you do."

Seifer caught a whiff of smoke on the breeze and pushed to his feet. Maybe he only thought he'd put the fire in the bedroom out and now the house was actually on fire.

He left Ellone on the steps and returned to the house, where the scent of sulfur lingered along with the odor of burned carpet, but there was no tell-tale smoke in the room or in the hall. Back in the bedroom, the smell was stronger, but the towel he'd left on the floor was not smoldering.

Relieved, he turned from the door, only to glimpse a bright, flickering red-orange outside the bedroom window.

He stepped around the bed and pushed the curtains aside.

Out in the field, a long line of fire blazed in the tall, dry grass. Plumes of smoke rose toward the sky, and he glimpsed shadows and shapes of people beyond the orange glow of the flames.

A pair of them separated from the group and approached the house.

Soldiers.

"Oh, shit," he said. "Elle?"

He turned away from the window at the sound of her footsteps. Her expression was grim and resigned rather than afraid, but her eyes burned a cold blue. The electric thrill of adrenaline charged through Seifer's veins as he considered what to do.

Stay and fight, or run?

"Elle, they're already here," he said.

"I know," she said. "I know."

"Then do something about it!" he said. "Don't just stand there like you're waiting for them to come get you!"

Something was happening outside. Voices grew closer, instructions shouted, a loud bang against the front door.

"Elle! Goddammit!"

A noxious smoke filled the hall and curled around the edges of the bedroom door. Seifer's eyes filled with involuntary tears and his throat tightened against the fumes. It was going to suffocate them.

Propelled by her indecisiveness, Seifer seized her arm and dragged her from the room, back into the kitchen and out the back door into the clear night air. They stood no chance of making it back to Edea's ship, but better to try and be shot down than wait around.

Three soldiers rounded the side of the house just as Seifer began his descent to the beach. A shot rang out and he ducked, dragging Ellone down with him, his body curled protectively around hers.

Then, the world compressed around him, crushing his bones and squeezing the breath from his lungs. A ripping sound filled his ears and a vicious wind rushed over his skin.

It seemed to go on forever, stretching his body, dislocating joints, tearing his flesh from his bones, but when it stopped his feet were on solid ground, the balmy evening air smelled fresh and clean and vaguely of hay. He patted his chest and stomach to ensure he hadn't been eviscerated or blown to pieces and found everything where it should be. He could breathe again. There was no pain.

But as he looked around, he discovered he had no idea where they were. White houses with tall, peaked roofs lined the cobblestone street where they stood, each with window boxes full of flowers and ivy. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, too cute and peaceful to be real.

Ellone let go of his hand and turned in a slow circle in the middle of the street, her lips parted and her eyes wide with not fear, but wonder.

"Elle, where the hell are we?" Seifer rasped.

"I'm not positive," she said slowly, "but I think... we're in Winhill."


End file.
